ZEZ 4000
by Haon Keis
Summary: Shadow, while confronting Eggman in his newly developed secret base, ends up pushed 4,000 years into the future. His rough journey throws him in the middle of an unfamiliar and futuristic Mobius with no known way to get to the past. With a target on his back, can Shadow change the future and the past?
1. Universal Speed Limit

**Z.E.Z. 4000**

Chapter One:

USL; Universal Speed Limit

Rouge the Bat spotted the mechanical eyesore amidst the night-blackened forest trees. She flew high above the canopy, but still kept in contact with her partner on the ground. She pressed a button on her headset allowing her to relay her findings to Shadow who was speeding through the trees below.

"Hey, I think I've spotted Eggman's base up ahead, but it looks strange. There aren't any entrances or obvious traps lain about, as usual. It's just a huge dome with his face on it."

Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform, tapped his earpiece and began speaking, "That's pretty unlike him. I'm guessing none of the others are there either," Shadow surmised.

"Nope. No hedgehogs, foxes, or echidnas in sight. Guess we'll be going solo for this one," his partner replied.

"Alright, keep me updated. We'll rendezvous once we're within a kilometer of the place."

"Copy."

Rouge's eyes darted around the landscape looking for a decent stopping point or a place of entry, but nothing stuck out until she noticed a cliff edge beside a building near the outskirts of Eggman's base. Rouge landed softly and silently then peeked over the cliff edge. She placed a hand on her hip puzzled as to how they should go about this. Shadow slowly approached from behind without alerting Rouge until he was within whispering distance.

"What is this thing?" Shadow whispered looking off the cliff at the sizable metal structure.

Used to the omnipresent feel of the silent hedgehog, Rouge was not startled by his silent entry. She simply pointed to a large air vent at the base of the structure.

"Bingo," she said proudly before flying into the air with an outstretched arm. "Grab on."

Shadow gently took hold of her hand and Rouge glided down the cliff and landed right beside their point of entry. Shadow easily removed the bolted grate before diving straight in, Rouge not far behind. They slid down the vent for what felt like ages until they hit the very bottom making the least noise possible. It was cramped in the vent, so they had to walk on their hands and knees. Because of this, it took them a while to reach anywhere worthy of consideration especially with the forked pathways, and the winding route they had taken. Rouge would speak to Shadow occasionally during their sneaking, but Shadow hushed Rouge and ceased his movements as a grate he had found laid directly above the room that housed none other than Doctor Eggman himself.

"What is it?" Rouge asked impatiently from behind.

Shadow looked behind him and mouthed the name, 'Eggman.'

Rouge nodded in understanding, then Shadow returned his attention to the Doctor. A small robot resembling a flicky walked up to the doctor and pecked one of his legs.

He looked down with his usual scorn and "What is it yolk-bot? Do you have an update on the status of the Ultima egg?"

"Yes, Doctor. The diagnostics requested earlier have been completed on the Ultima Egg's thrusters and no anomalies have been detected. The Ultima Egg is ready to head into orbit."

 _Take off into orbit?_ Shadow thought. _I didn't notice any rockets or any runways…_

Eggman chuckled deviously and walked forward toward what looked like a control panel, "At last, my plan to use the Master Emerald and the seven Chaos Emeralds to lift the Ultima egg into orbit is in its final stages…"

Both Rouge and Shadow caught the weird flaw in the plan's revelation. Shadow currently possessed a chaos emerald, so there was no way Eggman could have all seven, but Shadow realized what he meant in a few short moments.

"... Isn't that right, Shadow?" the doctor continued, pressing a button on the control panel.

Metal bars enclosed the section of the vent Shadow and Rouge were in before detaching from the ceiling and crashing violently to the floor.

Shadow scoffed before attempting to use chaos control to escape the creative prison. Instead of teleporting, though, he was stopped by a harsh electrocution.

Eggman walked up to the cage and placed a triumphant leg on top of it and spoke, "I assume this means you missed the machine I built around the Master Emerald to negate the power of all the lesser emeralds, hm?"

"Negate? What are you talking about?" Shadow said beginning to get annoyed.

"Those pesky emeralds have always been a crippling factor in the failure of my evil plans, so I decided to create a machine which negates their power using the power of the Master Emerald! The Chaos N-Egg-ator!"

"And you think that's enough to keep you safe, huh? I'm offended." Shadow said as he began to pry the metal bars in front of him apart.

Horrified, Eggman and the yolk-bot did not wait until Shadow was free to begin fleeing in the Egg Mobile. He closed the metal door behind him just in time to stop the quick hedgehog that had just escaped. Shadow began banging on the door in frustration as he swore in his mind. He glanced down at his Chaos Emerald noticing that it was dulled nearly to gray. What Eggman said was true.

"So you're just gonna leave me here?!" Rouge asked still inside of the fallen vent.

"What? You can't get out?"

"In case you didn't notice my hips are a _tiny_ bit wider than yours and unfortunately, I can't bend metal bars."

Shadow rolled his eyes and assisted Rouge before returning his attention to the matter at hand.

"We need to find a way out of this room," he said walking towards the control panel, "Because that door is locked tight."

He pushed a few buttons, but none of them did anything. Rouge lightly moved Shadow out of the way and punched in a few commands and within seconds the door was open, "After you," she said.

Shadow rolled his eyes at the smug look that he was receiving from Rouge and sped through the door, his partner flying close behind.

"We should split up," Rouge suggested. "I'm sure you can handle the doctor by yourself, but I'd like to get a bit more info on this place before we take it down."

"Fine," Shadow said indifferently, "You go ahead and do your recon. I have a date with the doctor."

They parted ways then Shadow refocused his attention to the hallway Eggman used to flee. It only took a few moments to catch up. Not realizing that Shadow had caught up with him, Eggman chuckled lightly to himself until he turned around and spotted his enemy a few feet away from him.

"What?! How did you catch up you pesky hedgehog?" he didn't even allow Shadow to answer. "No matter. I'll keep you off my trail with these! Xylo-bots!"

Answering his call, a trio of tall, wiry, white robots seemingly materialized out of nowhere and began their pursuit of the hedgehog. They resembled skeletons with their squared ribcages protecting what looked like a CPU unit, an obvious weak spot. Not intimidated at all, Shadow sent a rocketing kick straight at one of the robot's ribcages and with a melodious chime the robot easily came crashing down until it was an unmoving heap of metal. Although they were lightweight and easy to overpower, Shadow quickly noticed both their speed and their intelligence. He attempted the same kick as earlier, but this time it was easily dodged even at the high speed at which their little battle was occurring. Throw in a few laser beams being fired from the Egg Mobile and Shadow found himself on the ropes.

Shadow noticed an upcoming hallway to his right and he used it elude Eggman and his bots for at least a moment. Turning only bought him a few seconds until the bots and Eggman were on his trail.

Eggman's annoying laugh could be heard behind Shadow, "Ahahaha! The aggressor has turned tail and has begun to flee?! What a taste of irony!"

Shadow didn't respond as he made another lightning-quick turn into a nearby hallway, but this time he was not running anywhere. Eggman and his bot lost sight of the hedgehog. Wary of an ambush, the doctor followed the last sight of Shadow cautiously, but not cautiously enough as the black hedgehog dropped from the ceiling on top of Eggman wrapping his arm around the Doctor's neck until he had lost consciousness. Before Eggman blacked out he fired a series of laser beams randomly in a panic. A few of them hit the Xylo-Bots destroying them and securing his capture.

The Eggmobile floated calmly to the ground holding the unconscious Eggman. With a sigh Shadow hopped off of the Egg Mobile and contacted Rouge, "Rouge, come in. I've subdued the Doctor," Shadow searched Eggman's pockets, conveniently retrieving a keycard, "And I just got a promotion. Over."

"Good timing, I ran into a pretty suspicious door, here and I can't bypass it. Rendezvous here so we can find out what's going on."

With guidance from Rouge, Shadow was able to to make his way over to the door his partner was having difficulty with. Using the keycard he had just retrieved from the Doctor, Shadow opened the door and the scale of what was found behind it was bewildering.

The door only opened to a glass bridge at the top of a room that extended so far down the bottom could not be seen. The room was pure white and the walls were lined with white mechanical equipment in the midst of creating something. The whirring of the machines could be clearly heard from below. The most notable fact was the Master Emerald embedded within the wall across from the door Rouge and Shadow had just entered. Rouge was first to step on the bridge and kneel down to look through the floor and Shadow followed suit dropping Eggman beside him.

"These machines, seem to be powered by the Master Emerald, but how? I thought chaos energy wasn't able to be used in the base," Rouge questioned.

"So did I. Perhaps it's because the N-Egg-at or requires the energy of the Master Emerald to pull off the negation in the first place, and stopping the Master Emerald would stop these machines. In other words, the N-Egg-ator uses the power of the Master Emerald to cut off the energy supply to the rest of the Emeralds within a certain radius," Shadow answered.

"Why just within a certain radius?"

"I assume it's to keep a low profile. If Eggman disabled the Emeralds all at once it would surely raise a few red flags."

"Speaking of red flags, shouldn't Knux have come running if he noticed that thing was missing. Where is he in all of this?"

"I'm not sure, but we shouldn't worry too much about that now. Our main concern is disabling this machine. Fly me down there and we'll see if we can destroy this thing without harming the Master Emerald."

"What about the Doctor? What if he gets up?"

"We'll be able to see him if he does. Besides, once this is done he'll be powerless. Let's get a move on."

Shadow took Rouge's hand before they flew down a few stories it felt to the Master Emerald. There were no stable platforms for Shadow or Rouge to land on. From that small detail, Shadow could tell this huge machine is completely automated. Shadow could also tell that the Emerald itself was encased in some kind of electrical energy. He wouldn't be able to get through. His focus almost instantly shifted to the four rods above, below, and at either side of the Emerald. Those seemed to be emitting the force field.

With his free hand, Shadow pointed to the rod directly above the Master Emerald, "Can you throw me just above that rod? If my reasoning is correct we should be able to free the Master Emerald."

Rouge nodded and began to spin in place until she had enough momentum to throw Shadow to the wall just above the electrical rod. He accelerated and collided with the wall. His momentum allowed him to stick to the wall for a split second and in that split second he confirmed that the Master Emerald was being used to silence the rest of the Chaos Emeralds. He could feel the power of his own Chaos Emerald increase as he drew closer. Now that he was mere meters away from the Master Emerald. His Chaos Emerald shone to nearly full intensity. Shadow used the reservoir of energy now present in the Chaos Emerald to unleash a powerful blast of energy the wall.

"Chaos Blast!"

The shockwave of energy sent him flying back into Rouge's arms. As soon as the blast went off, a white dust was thrown up into the air. Once it cleared, there was very little noticeable damage to the wall, its components, or the rod below.

"Nothing?" Rouge said surprised.

"Perhaps it has to do with the N-Egg-ato—"

Shadow's words were cut off by an electric current stunning Rouge and flowing through him as well. It affected Shadow far less than Rouge who was unconscious and in free fall towards the bottom of this seemingly endless room. Shadow looked upwards as he fell and spotted the Doctor in his Egg Mobile that must have returned to him automatically.

 _Idiot_ , Shadow thought to himself as he thought about what to do.

After calling her name a few times and realizing it was futile, Shadow nosedived as quickly as he could towards the bottom of the room. It took fourteen nerve-racking seconds for Shadow to slam feet-first into the bottom of the white room. He recollected himself and extended his arms to catch Rouge. He just barely did so as he had to dodge a laser beam coming from directly beneath his feet first before making the catch.

He had no time to try and wake Rouge as more laser turrets revealed themselves from within the walls of machinery. It didn't take long before they began to fire upon the hedgehog. With Rouge still in his arms, Shadow hopped between the machines on the adjacent walls in an attempt to ascend up and away from the laser fire, but the further up he went, the more turrets appeared. Luckily for him, Rouge began to awake amidst the chaos.

"Shadow?" Rouge asked groggily, wondering why she was in his arms.

"Rouge. Wake up. We need to find a way out of here."

Rouge blinked rapidly trying to wake herself then lifted herself out of Shadows arms careful of the nearby laser beams whose focus had split onto both of the ascending targets. Shadow continued hopping from wall to wall as Rouge flew directly upwards both desperately trying to make it to the bridge at the very top of the room many, many meters above them.

Rouge allowed her focus to slip for just a split second. Unfortunately, this was enough time for a laser beam to hit her in the wing, making it too painful to fly. Like before Shadow noticed this and went dove after Rouge again. She plummeted to the bottom of the room once more. Shadow didn't catch up in time, but Rouge was able to soften her landing slightly using her healthy wing to change her trajectory. Shadow landed near her and covered her with his body bracing for a stream of laser-fire, but it took him a few seconds to realize that the turrets had stopped firing.

"…Why did they stop?" Shadow asked puzzled at their stroke of luck.

"I-I'm not sure…" Rouge responded just as confused.

The turrets that appeared in place of the machines disappeared and the four wall that surrounded them began whirring with the sounds of an assembly line. Shadow followed the line of machines all the way to the end and took a look at the finished product. One Xylo-bot for each wall had appeared fully assembled and the machines that created them were still going.

"Damn we must've triggered a silent alarm or something," Shadow said standing back up.

Rouge, annoyed at herself, found the will to stand up again and stood, back to back with Shadow.

"I fought a couple of these things already," Shadow said. "They're tough and they learn pretty fast, so be careful."

"Copy," Rouge said before her partner went darting after one of the Xylo-bots.

Shadow jumped and tried to easily subdue the bot by kicking its CPU unit clean out of its ribcage, but it easily made the hedgehog miss before punching him square in the chest.

"Shadow!" Rouge exclaimed surprised that the robot so easily overpowered him.

Shadow slid backward before quickly recovering, "And it seems like these things have some sort of collective mind. I kicked one of these things earlier, so it probably saw that coming."

"A collective mind, huh? So we should try to be as unpredictable as possible."

"My thoughts exactly."

Shadow approached the robot as he did before, but this time he slid and swept the robot's legs from under it before quickly recovering and destroying its CPU unit. By the time Shadow had taken care of one, however, another four had appeared as the machines kept going.

Shadow backed up to the center of the room. Rouge had already taken care of two of the bots with her heart bombs, but still another five surrounded them. Shadow gestured for a bomb from Rouge and drew in close to a robot. He dodged the attack that came out from it and stuck it onto the robot. He shoved the robot into another two making all three of them explode, destroying their CPU units. Still, though, another four robots were created from the machines that surrounded them.

It didn't take long before Shadow and Rouge were knee deep in a page-white sea of robots with no available escape. No matter how crowded the room got, the machine continued pumping out more and more Xylo-bots. Shadow realized the futility of fighting back and began to only defend himself against this unending wave of enemies. He wasn't even able to check on Rouge as he placed his arms in front of his face blocking the many blows that came from every direction. He still heard explosions which were reassuring for a while, but eventually, those ceased and Shadow was pinned down, powerless to fight these ruthless robots. Now they just tormented him, kicking him while he was down.

"Had enough?!" said the familiar voice over the intercom. "Xylo-bots. Cease!"

And just like that, they stopped their attack and backed away from the two beaten heroes.

"Hahahahaha! Even the mighty Shadow the Hedgehog can't overpower the Ultima Egg's main defensive system, soon to be offensive system!" Eggman continued.

Shadow pried himself off the ground and stared evilly at the Xylo-bots standing silently, "So that's your plan: To conquer the entire planet using these…"

"Absolutely! None of the Freedom Fighters will be able to overcome this!"

"Well then, since I'm beaten already, Eggman, humor me. How does this machine work?"

"Fine you'll be gone shortly, so I'll let you in on my little secret. In this universe, it is possible to create pure energy from any kind of matter if that matter is accelerated quickly enough, so I simply reversed In layman terms, I use the raw energy of the Master Emerald to essentially print new matter in the form of these Xylo-bots. And because the energy of the Master Emerald is limitless, my robot army will be limitless! Hahahahahah!"

Shadow looked over to Rouge, she was still breathing but looked like she was in bad shape.

"Now that I've told you my secret," Eggman began, "I must get rid of you permanently."

"What? Are you going to kill me? That's dark even for you Doctor," Shadow protested.

"Oh, Chaos, no. I just lock you away, of course. Xylo-bots. Take the hedgehog and the bat to Hangar Eleven."

And to Hangar Eleven they went, but not without a fight from Shadow. The last of his willpower only took a single punch to the gut to snuff out. An elevator was conveniently provided to allow the bots to leave the room and proceed to Hangar Eleven. Hangar Eleven seemed to be filled with what looked like escape pods. Why would there be a need for escape pods if the base was built underground?

Then Shadow remembered something that one of Eggman's robots had mentioned.

 _That thing, it said something about orbit._ Shadow said to himself.

After the robots threw Rouge and Shadow into the escape pods, the doors were sealed and the power supply for the escape pods was removed.

Happily, Eggman walked up to the tiny window on the escape pod door and said to the hedgehog, "That will serve as your cell for now until we can turn you two into robots."

Eggman chuckled and Shadow eyed him as he walked away. The second he was out of sight he tried to activate the center console for the escape pod. He repeatedly pressed the button that looked similar to a power button but, of course, nothing happened. He sat down in one of the six seats in the room. And let out a deep sigh. Shadow's feeling of defeat left him quickly as he thought of a way to escape the pod. He tapped his earpiece and began speaking before plopping down onto one of the seats, "Rouge, are you alright?"

"Rouge," no response.

"Rouge," he said again.

"Rouge, come in, we need to find a way—"

Once again his words were cut off by Rouge who had returned the power to his escape pod. She opened up Shadow's pod and walked in, sly as usual.

"..."

"Before you ask, there was an emergency release lever inside the door. We need to wait until this thing gets into the air before we can use these escape pods and get to safety."

"We're using both?" Shadow asked.

"Yeah. Just in case they noticed we left and captured one of us."

"Good point."

Just as it was mentioned the rumble of thrusters from below could be heard alongside the warning system.

"TAKEOFF SEQUENCE INITIATED. TAKEOFF IN T-MINUS 32 SECONDS...31...30...29...28…"

"Looks like it's about that time. I'll head to my pod. Keep your channel open, so we can communicate," Rouge said before quickly flying into her pod.

For a while, Shadow could only see dirt and rock sliding past the window of the pod as the Ultima Egg began to rise. The rate at which it ascended increased with each passing second. Within a few moments, the surface had been broken so Shadow could see the dawn-lit forest trees fall far beneath him as the Ultima Egg continued to rise. From the sheer amount of dirt, rocks, and trees flying off the hull of the enormous ship, Shadow finally realized how huge the Ultima Egg really was. Shadow had fully realized: Eggman wasn't simply planning on taking over the planet. He wanted to enslave every living thing on the planet and bend them to his will.

Shadow continued staring and tapped his earpiece, receiving Rouge's transmission.

"Shadow...are you seeing this…?

"Yes. We need to put a stop to it, but we can't do it alone. We need the Freedom Fighters."

"We've seen enough. We need to get out of here," Rouge said. "Do you know how to launch the pod?"

"Press the big red button?"

"Press the big red button, on three."

Then, on three, Shadow pressed the big red button before quickly accelerating to Mach 1.

Within a few seconds, they were already a mile away from the Ultima Egg, but they would not escape freely as they thought they would. Now four miles behind them, the Ultima Egg could be seen charging what looked like a laser cannon aimed directly at the puny escape pods.

"Is he trying to kill us?!" Rouge exclaimed.

"Split up!" Shadow said taking the controls that were similar to a plane or jet and hit a hard left hoping the cannon would miss, but Shadow would have no such luck. The laser hit him directly but didn't cause him to burst into a fiery explosion, but instead, he lost all control.

He attempted a shutdown. Failure.

He attempted to use the emergency release. Failure.

He punched the control panel. Failure.

He realized that he had his Emerald, but it was still dull gray. What he hadn't realized that he was accelerating and ascending. Since he wasn't in a seat, this finally occurred to him when he lost his footing and landed on the escape pod door which was now below him. With some difficulty, he reached a seat and buckled himself in. He read the speedometer and it read '999 MPH.' The display began glitching indicating the fact that the number was far below how quickly Shadow was actually traveling.

Since Shadow was used to moving quickly he was able to resist the effects of this high speed but not for much longer. His vision began fading in and out before he had even broken the clouds. The entire time, Rouge had been yelling at him through the communicator hoping for a response, but he could only say her name softly to himself as he lost his strength.

 _Z.E.Z. 4000~_


	2. Ultimate Little Secret

**Author Note:** Watch out for the _Nerdy Notes_ I leave behind in my writing that will be denoted by _**n.n.**_ in parenthesis. If there is more that one nerdy note within a chapter, I'll put a number after it as such (Roman numerals of course):

 _ **(n.n. i.)**_

 ** _(n.n. ii.)_**

 _ **(n.n. iii.)**_ and so on….

Basically, Nerdy Notes let me express my inner nerd in the story without confusing the audience or breaking the flow of the reading. For example, a part of this story will involve the numeric barrier that Shadow faces in the future. In other words, he will have have to get used to Base 12. If you're not sure what that is I'll explain it in my Nerdy Note at the bottom of the page which will be the designated area for Nerdy Notes. Lastly, Nerdy Notes won't be cripplingly important to the plot, so if you wanna ignore them feel free. They do help with story comprehension, so beware.

Enough blathering from me, though, enjoy this chapter :D.

* * *

 **Z.E.Z. 4000**

Chapter Two:

ULS; Ultimate Little Secret

Shadow opened his eyes for the first time in much longer than he realized. He stared straight up at what appeared to be the night sky peppered with milk-white dots in very unusual positions. He blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to his otherwise dark surroundings and began to question exactly where he was. His first thought drifted to his partner. Was she alright and had she crash landed like he did or did she avoid it and make it back to Sonic and the other Freedom Fighters? He couldn't find his communicator or even his Chaos Emerald, so he let the thought drift from concern for the moment. Shadow then attempted to stand up but found that simply sitting up was, by itself, was a challenge. He even struggled to simply flip over from his supine position to a prone one and push himself up. At last, Shadow had gotten up to his knees. He felt around in the darkness and felt a sturdy structure to his left. Using it as a prop, Shadow shakily got to his feet. Already exhausted, Shadow failed to hold himself up on very shaky legs and collapsed. Little did he know, he was right beside a hill and ended up rolling down quite a ways, running into trees and kicking up leaves as he darted unwillingly down the hill.

Shadow landed flat on his face, defeated and in pain. He didn't bother moving from where he was laying. He only turned his head to the side so could breathe and waited. He didn't know what exactly he was waiting for, but doing nothing is better than attempting something that is futile in the end. Shadow knew he had been asleep for a while as his mouth had completely dried up, but he had not imagined that he was unconscious long enough to lose the majority of his strength.

Shadow was horrified at what he was experiencing. Never in all his life had he been so helpless and vulnerable and this made Shadow feel a fear he never thought he'd feel. His heartbeat increased to an uncomfortably high rate, then suddenly the nighttime had become a much more frightening and hostile environment. Shadow heard every bump, rattle, and whistle in the night, but nothing had come to harm him as the hedgehog believed would have happened in his irrational state of mind. He endured thirty minutes of those anxiety-stirring noises until he began to notice a sound he could properly identify.

Shadow became bone still as he heard the periodic crunching of leaves in the direction opposite of where he could see. These were very clearly the footsteps of something. Whether that something was treacherous or timid was to be found out within moments. As the sound of the footsteps intensified, a glow that resonated from somewhere unknown intensified along with it. The footsteps ceased and the light's intensity became unmoving. It shone directly above the hedgehog and for the first time in the last half an hour or so, he noticed the blue-green grass directly in front of his eyes and the tall trees that he laid directly beside.

He felt a warm hand touch his shoulder and a small feminine voice reached out to him, "Hey, are you alright?"

Shadow was relieved to hear a seemingly concerned voice, but he did not drop his guard. He closed his eyes feigning unconsciousness.

Shadow took too long to respond, so the stranger above him felt the pulse on his neck and on her own for comparison. Compared to hers, Shadow was far weaker, so there was definitely merit for concern. As gingerly as she could, the stranger rolled Shadow onto his back and put her ear near his mouth and listened for his breathing. As she did, her long orange hair fell down onto Shadow's face and he got a strong, almost suffocating whiff of what smelled like a mix of peroxide, bleach, and peaches. After only half a breath of the stranger's hair, Shadow began coughing and pushed himself away from the strong smell. Interpreting this response as fear the stranger gasped and said, "I am sorry if I startled you, I was just concerned to see you lying here this late at night."

Shadow took a few breaths of seemingly fresh air and only just realized he had sat himself up. He still did not respond to the stranger, however. Not until she told him her name.

Finding his lack of a response very awkward the stranger decided to introduce herself, "My name is Liuxia. Liuxia the Cat. What is yours? Do you remember?"

"Shadow," he replied simply.

"Do you know you how got here, Shadow?"

Shadow stared at the ground as if the answer to her question could be found there, ". . . I . . . I don't know."

"Do. . . you need medical attention? You look pretty roughed up."

"No. No, just point me in the direction of the nearest police station and I should be alright."

"Police station? I, uh, do not know what you mean." _**(n.n. i.)**_

"How…?" Shadow didn't even bother finishing his question. "Look. I'm fine. Head back to whatever back alley you crawled out of. I'm in the middle of some very important work."

"Oh. I will, uh, leave you to it then. Sorry for bothering you."

Liuxia stood up and turned around she took a few steps until she heard grunts full of pain and distress. She glanced back at Shadow who had made it to his feet but once again failed his very next step. He fell into a kneeling position, one arm on the ground bracing the fall and the other on his knee. As Liuxia saw this she ran to Shadow's side, "Hey, hey! Take it easy."

"Go away, Luja, or whatever your name is. I told you to take a hike!"

"It is Liuxia. LOO-SHA," she enunciated. "And you are obviously hurt. I mean you cannot even walk. I refuse to just abandon you out here in this condition."

"You're not 'abandoning' me if I don't want you here."

"Oh come on. I will help you walk," Liuxia said until she noticed the angry look on his face. "Just until you are out of the forest?"

Shadow sighed, shook his head, then begrudgingly put his arm around Liuxia. Shadow slowly shifted his weight onto Liuxia's shoulder until she was carrying the majority of his weight. They began to walk in the direction that Liuxia had come from. Although his temporary assistant was doing most of the work, Shadow was still struggling, evident by his labored breaths and rapidly increasing temperature. After a while of this taxing endeavor, Shadow began to feel uneasy. Even with Liuxia supporting him, he had managed to lose his footing and fall down. As if testing his level of consciousness, he looked at his gloved hand and watched worriedly as it fell in and out of focus. He blinked in an attempt to control his body, but soon, without him even realizing, his vision grayed and eventually went black as he collapsed completely.

In messy blotches of recollection and unconsciousness, Shadow saw Liuxia leaning over his collapsed body yelling in hopes that he'd come to. Unfortunately, Shadow remained unresponsive although his eyes shifted from side to side, perhaps wondering where he was.

As Shadow collapsed, Liuxia fell as well from the unexpected addition of weight. She had hit her shin square on a protruding tree root, but she tried to ignore the pain as she looked at Shadow. She called his name a few times and even shook him, so when she was certain that nothing was getting through, she left him with a plan to return and give Shadow the help he didn't realize he needed.

Luckily, Liuxia's home was only short run from where Shadow had collapsed, so it didn't take much effort for her to run there and get a handy wheelbarrow. Shadow, compared to other people wasn't very big, but compared to the even smaller Liuxia he may as well have been a boulder of muscle. Since it'd be near impossible for her to actually carry the hedgehog, this wheelbarrow was her best bet. She hurriedly returned to Shadow, then picking him up as gingerly as she could, placed him in the wheelbarrow.

With a herculean effort, Liuxia pulled the relatively heavy hedgehog along. Although she wasn't on the verge of passing out like Shadow, she could feel herself getting winded. Her arms burned and her back ached, but even so, she continued on. As she reached the imaginary line where her backyard met the forest, she had gifted herself a moment to rest before rolling Shadow further onto her property. Liuxia's greatest challenge would come in the form of getting Shadow into her treehouse, which is where she planned to put him, so her parents didn't realize that she was housing a stranger. For the moment, she was in the clear. No one was in sight, so she just may be able to pull this off.

At least that was what she was thinking before a face familiar to her had popped out of nowhere. The person hadn't noticed her, so she had a few moments to hide Shadow. Beside the tree trunk of her tree house were a few bags of fresh dirt. So, quickly she opened one of the huge bags and dumped it all over Shadow who was still unconscious at this point. She also ensured that he had a hole for his nose to pop though, so he was able to breathe. As she finished making the hole, the familiar face had finally noticed Liuxia.

"Liuxia?" a groggy voice pondered from around the tree trunk.

"Daaad!" Liuxia exclaimed as inconspicuously as she could.

"I was just about to look for you in your treehouse in case you fell asleep in there like you always do," Liuxia's father said a small smile on his face. "Anyway, what is with the—"

"Oh, this?" Liuxia asked pointing to the mound of dirt she piled within the wheelbarrow, "I was just about to start fixing up the old flower patch."

Her father turned around and looked at the flower patch appearing brand new right below the kitchen window, adjacent to the sliding back doors.

"That flower patch?" he asked before receiving a hasty nod from his daughter. "Your mother just made that flower patch two days ago."

"Really? It looked a little… unkempt, so I decided to fix it up a little, you know?"

"Okay…" he said. "Anyway just make sure you get inside before that clock strikes ten, all right?"

"Dad I always leave my treehouse before midnight unless I fall asleep." _**(n.n. ii.)**_

"Liuxia, the X-bots have been about lately. The last thing I need is the Judges accusing you of doing something malicious."

"You worry too much. I will be in the house in no time at all."

Her father sighed, it was laced with discontent, "Fine. I am going to bed." He drew closer to her, closer to her secret and planted a small kiss on her forehead before turning and entering the house, "Goodnight, sweetheart."

"Night," Liuxia said back still standing in the same spot she was in at the beginning of their conversation.

Finally, her father left and eventually flicked off the lights in the house which gave Liuxia the cover of darkness to hatch a plan to get a heavy hedgehog ten feet up to the entrance of the treehouse. Before that could happen, though, she dug up Shadow and tried again to wake him up. She had an idea as to how she'd get Shadow to the entrance, but he had to be fully awake for it to work.

"Hey. Hey!" she said slapping his face lightly to wake him.

He opened two bloodshot eyes and looked around. He still had a fair few crumbs of dirt on his chest and neck, so he was confused much like when he first awoke only thirty minutes ago _**(n.n. iii.)**_.

With a groan, Shadow sat up in the wheelbarrow then dusted himself off, "What happened? Did I pass out again?"

Liuxia mentally noted that Shadow said again, but did not mention it, "Yes. I need your strength again Shadow, so we can get you into my treehouse."

"Treehouse?" Shadow took a look around and saw that he was quite a ways out of the forest, "That was not our agreement."

"Oh, sorry. I guess you can go ahead and walk yourself off of my property."

Silence from the hedgehog.

"I will only keep you up there until you can fend for yourself, then you can leave when you feel you are capable."

Another sigh, and another begrudging response, "Fine."

Liuxia grabbed a lengthy rope from the same area she found the dirt and managed to sling it over an overhanging tree branch. This didn't appear to be a regular rope, however. It was thinner than a typical rope and was much stronger. She had Shadow stand up and tied one end around his waist and left the other end free for her to grab.

"All you need to do is guide yourself up the ladder and I'll handle the heavy lifting."

"I'm heavier than you are, how exactly do you expect this to work?"

"You let me handle that," Liuxia said making her way up the ladder herself.

Liuxia's tree house tree pervaded the inside of the tree house itself, so she weaved the rope in between several sturdy branches meticulously to guarantee it would hold up Shadow's weight. The tree was also one with a very smooth bark which would disallow a high friction coefficient from being a concern due to the multiple contact points. What Liuxia had created was a block and tackle system designed to lessen the force required to lift Shadow up.

"Learned this in class, so wish me luck," Liuxia said before wrapping the rope around her arm and giving it a sturdy yank.

Even though the tree was smoother than typical ones, there was still a hefty amount of friction Liuxia had to fight though. She had pulled quite a bit of rope, and hadn't heard anything from Shadow.

"Hey, how are you doing out there?"

"Fine," Shadow said sounding as annoyed as he had a few minutes ago.

Liuxia let out an excited gasp as she began to see Shadow pop up his arms crossed in vexed disapproval. A proud bead of sweat rolled down her face as she sat in disbelief at her own creation. At last, when she believed that Shadow was high enough, she tied her side of the pulley to the last available branch before dashing excitedly over to Shadow and helping him inside.

"See!" Liuxia said panting, "I told you not to worry about it."

Lastly, Liuxia carried Shadow over to the bed that she often sleeps in when she falls asleep in her beloved tree house. She covered him in a comforter that was thrown about the room.

"There you go. All set. I will check on you tomorrow then," Liuxia said about to exit the tree house head into her own bed.

Before she could Shadow couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why?"

"Hm? Why, what?" she responded genuinely oblivious to how grateful this stranger was.

"Why did you bother helping me? I could have been dangerous. I could have been a criminal or something."

"Oh, I was not worried about that. Criminals don't last very long around here," she said with a smile.

"What do you—" Shadow was cut off by the sound of his stomach growling loudly and extensively.

"Jeez. You must be hungry.

"I'm not having any hunger pains actually."

"You should still eat something. Who knows how long it has been."

"Fine. Then bring me a home-cooked meal," Shadow said being smug.

"I would love to bring you a whole smorgasbord, but it is not wise to eat a lot after a long duration of fasting. I will bring you something though."

Liuxia climbed down the ladder to the tree house and entered her actual one. From the back, she turned left and headed into her kitchen. Her father had forgotten to clean the table, so Liuxia tapped the corner of the table five times and the entire thing collapsed into the ground, out of the way. The digital clock on her stovetop read:

'1E:39'

Fifteen minutes until midnight. _**(n.n. iv.)**_

The quickest thing Liuxia could think of retrieving for him was a jug of "A to K Juice," packed with vitamins and some bread perhaps. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed the juice and got the uncut loaf of bread on the counter just beside it. Quickly, she rushed back to Shadow who was still awake but lay staring at the roof.

"Here," Liuxia says placing the entire jug of juice on the floor beside Shadow. She broke about an eight off of the full loaf and handed it to Shadow. He said nothing as he accepted it, but it was obvious that Shadow was still a bit uncomfortable.

For a while as Shadow nibbled on his bread unwillingly and took small sips from the jug to wash the dry bread down. Once the bread was gone. he didn't bother drinking anymore. He stuck the cap back on, as it had no screw on it, then laid back down beneath the comforter and returned to staring at the roof.

"..." Liuxia pondered her guest as he finished eating.

"If you're going to ask me some arbitrary question go ahead, so I can fall asleep," Shadow said not bothering to even look at Liuxia.

"Well… I just want to know where you came from, really. Erm, where were you were born?"

"That's a complicated one. Next."

"Oookay… What do you want to be when you're older?"

Apparently, Shadow still came off as a teenager to the cat, so he played along, "A private detective."

"Ah," there was a slight pause where Liuxia was hoping Shadow would ask her the same thing in return, but it never came. "I want to be a Librarian."

"Don't hear that every day."

"Well, why would you not want to be one? They are information powerhouses. This way I can help a lot of people by connecting them to resources needed for their studies and research. And perhaps one day I can use the amalgamation of knowledge to make a change in New Mobius."

"Make a change? To what end exactly? Mobius is very nearly perfect."

"You really think so? Even with the...", she lowered her voice, "...Even with the Governor and High Judge spying on every move we make?"

"High Judge? Who is this High Judge?"

"Keep your voice down! Don't you know about the Y-bots?"

"Y-bots? Are they something Dr. Eggman created?"

"No, they were engineered by Athis Cleus, the governor. They look like little flickies, but they are most definitely not. They have cameras and audio systems to mark and catch criminals. Who is Dr. Eggman anyway?"

"Are you deluded or do you choose to ignore the biggest menace on the entire planet?"

"Minus the menace part, I could ask you the same thing. And the High Judge would have deployed the Z-bots to dispatch him if he was that much of a menace."

Shadow finally made eye contact with Liuxia, "There is something wrong. You and I are not on the same page here. Let me attempt to recalibrate this situation. This is planet Mobius, correct?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Okay, good. Where are we exactly?"

"New Mobius of course."

"Is that the name of this city?"

"No New Mobius would be the name of the collection of the last cities on Mobius. We're in New Cleus City or N.C.C. for short."

"The more you talk, the less I understand, Liuxia."

"What did I say?"

"What do you mean by 'last cities on Mobius?' Mobius is thriving."

Now Liuxia really noticed how much their thoughts were conflicting, "No… almost all of Mobius is lost. In the history books we have in class, we are told that Mobius was nearly completely wiped out by the expanding star at the center of our solar system. The atmosphere was vaporized away and the magnetic field protecting the planet was no longer strong enough to keep the radiation from the sun out. Then some scientist, I forgot his name, ended up devising the technology that allowed other brilliant Mobians to create the **A** utomated **R** adiosphere **D** efense and **E** mission **N** egation **T** echnology or ' **Ardent** ' for short. Some people also call it the Technosphere."

"Alright," Shadow said. "I've heard enough. None of this is making any sense."

"That is okay. You may have done something to your memory. That would be the only logical explanation for you not being able to comprehend things I consider common knowledge."

Shadow was not so sure. He had remembered everything before he had passed out the first time. He remembered everything from boarding the Ultima Egg to Rouge getting shot out of the air to Eggman shooting some kind of laser cannon at Shadow's escape pod which made it lose control. Next thing he knew he had wound up here. Of course, _some_ time may have passed since he woke up, but it couldn't have been that long could it?

"Yeah," Shadow lyingly admonished.

Liuxia stood up and turned around deliberately leaving the A to K Juice beside Shadow, "I'll check on you in the morning, but after that, I have to leave for about three hours."

"I take it you have some educational system in this strange town you must attend on a daily basis?"

"Daily basis? No need. We only have classes for three hours every other day, so we can focus on our fieldwork as they call it which would be held on the in-between days."

"Fieldwork? How old are you exactly?"

"I'm fifteen."

"Only fifteen?" _**(n.n. v.)**_

"What do you mean only? I am graduating this year!"

"Kids here graduate at fifteen?" Shadow realized that he was slipping back into a chain of questions as he had before. "Actually nevermi—"

"Well the ideal age would be 16, but I am a tad bit younger than the rest of the students in my class. Anyway, I really should be heading to sleep. I'll see you in the morning?"

"I doubt I'll be going anywhere."

With that, Liuxia left the tree house understanding even less about this strange hedgehog than she had before. She opened the closed her back door as she entered. She looked at the time and luckily it was one minute past midnight, so her father wouldn't be upset. She headed straight up the steps and to the end of the hallway to her room. Her door closed behind her automatically and locked as well, just as she had it configured. She slid her hand against the windowsill as it opened for her. She looked out at the tree house one last time before hopping in her bed and letting her comforter roll over her body, her pillows beginning the automated cooling process as her head touched down.

The night went quickly and Liuxia awoke at six in the morning as she had for the past four years. She quickly hopped in the shower before anyone else in the house was awake and got dressed for her field studies in Librarianism. Her outfit was a simple one, she had an earth-toned flowy button up top and tan pants to compliment it.

She didn't bother eating herself but grabbed a few snacks before heading up to the tree house to find that Shadow wasn't even on the mattress where she had left him. Worriedly, she looked to her left and found Shadow standing, staring out of the window and looking out at all the morning traffic.

"Ah, you look like you are feeling better. How was your rest?" Liuxia asked joining him at the window.

"It was satisfactory. I do feel better because of it. I do have one question though," Shadow responded simply.

"I am glad. And what is on your mind?"

"It's morning isn't it, so why is it still pitch black outside?"

"Oh, here it is always dark," Liuxia said no longer surprised by the fact that Shadow didn't know anything. "The technosphere domes are usually self-lit by the buildings that are contained within them, so to save some power the cities are generally kept dark. The city with the most light would be the Slip-Stream because it is directly next to the farm which uses artificial UV rays to grow fresh produce."

"I'm guessing each technosphere dome houses a city?"

"Yup. Now you are getting the hang of things. You think these will hold you over until I'm back?" Liuxia said handing a bag of goodies to the hedgehog.

"These will do."

Content with that response, Liuxia began to leave the tree house, but a thought hit her as she was about to head down, "Oh, and if you feel strong enough to leave, make sure you take another A to K Juice out of my fridge before you go."

Shadow didn't say anything else as Liuxia continued to descend.

Finally, Liuxia was able to eat her breakfast and head to the local library only a few minutes drive from her house. She just finished cleaning her plate of waffles when her younger brother had walked down the stairs groggily like he usually does, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"Hey, Vulcano," Liuxia said with a typical 'I see you every day' look on her face.

"I hate it when you call me that, Liu-Liu," he said taking a seat at the kitchen table beside her.

"I know," she said. "That is why I say it. Anyway, I'm heading to the library, call me if you want any goodies from the supermarket."

"All right."

With that, Liuxia grabbed her belongings which included a shoulder bag stuffed with a horde of items she honestly didn't need. Regardless she snatched it up and headed through the front door. As Liuxia looked up at the flying traffic lights she always became enamored with the feel of the city knowing that she'd eventually have a huge impact on it. She wasn't sure if that feeling was one of conceit or confidence, but she enjoyed the feeling nonetheless. Her pride began swelling even more as she entered her car located directly beside the curb. All citizens required a chip to implanted with their bodies filled with their personal information, so they could be identified at a moment's notice. This also helped citizens evolve to no longer need house keys or car keys or even security cards. All of that information was found in the chip implant. The car recognized her instantly, so she only needed to walk close to her car and it would open the doors automatically. She slid in comfortably and as she sat in the car automatically strapped her in.

"Good morning, Mordecai," Liuxia said addressing her car.

It responded back, "Ah, hello, ma'am. Off to the library this morning?"

"Of course," she said before sitting back allowing Mordecai to do the rest of the work.

"Very good, Madam Liuxia," the car responded before beginning to levitate then accelerate towards the library. "Would you like to hear the news this morning?"

"No, thank you, Mordecai," Liuxia said pulling a book out of her shoulder bag stuffing her face into it.

While she read, she ignored the thousands of other floating cars that drifted in random directions all headed to their designated areas. They all weaved their own paths between the enormous skyscrapers of two hundred or more stories.

Liuxia waited patiently for her ride to come to an end, so she could search up some information before her class started.

Mordecai parked in the spot he did every other morning and Liuxia exited as soon as she was unstrapped, "Smooth ride as always, Mordy."

"A pleasure, Madam Liuxia."

Liuxia left the vehicle and entered the enormous library. The libraries of New Mobius were not like one would expect. Of course, books existed within them, but the libraries' main function was to be the source of the most up to date information on any topic. This required thousands upon thousands of computers for any and all people to use for free.

As she walked in, she noticed the familiar central hub which was where most of the books were found, although many could be found in the underground levels as well. From the central hub, the dozens of computer-filled stories could be observed. There were balconies on every story going up that could see directly down into the central hub. They were circular balconies surrounding the central hub and each one could be seen its entirety along with the thousands of curious bodies along with them.

Liuxia headed to the section of the library dedicated solely to nonfictional material. There were books, e-books, old and new newspapers, and of course computer technology geared toward nonfiction topics. Liuxia tapped her lip wondering exactly where she should begin her search. She walked up to one of the computers and she was able to quickly get a hot spot of information on the topic she was curious about using a keyword. She headed to a few rows of books the computer suggested she search in and with a little ducking and tiptoeing next to the bookshelves to find a very interesting book titled: 'Eggman: A Biography.' It was written by a man named Miles Prower, whoever that was.

Strangely, Liuxia became nervous as she grabbed the old looking book. It wasn't very dusty as the books are well taken care of, but the pages were heavily yellow indicating its age. She looked at the table of contents and found a few different sections to choose from. She decided to start from the introduction to see if she could pick out a few dates or anything that would help her understand Shadow's position a bit better. She saw an excerpt from the book that caught her eye:

'Eggman was most powerful towards the end of his life when he launched the Ultima Egg in June of 1202.' _**(n.n. vi.)**_

Considering that the year currently was 35E9, Eggman must have died roughly 4000 years ago.

"Shadow is talking about some four-thousand-year-old dead guy as if he actually knew him. There is just now way he… actually knew him."

 _Z.E.Z. 4000~_

 _Nerdy Note Time! (Remember you don't need to read these if you don't want to!)_

 _ **(n.n. i.)**_ \- Note the weird way that Liuxia talks. It's not particularly important, but for immersion's sake, keep it in mind.

 _ **(n.n. ii.)**_ \- Note that Liuxia implies that midnight is 10:00 like her father mentions. This is no mistake my dear reader, but — I'll give you a hint — a product of the use of 'Base 12 time'. In layman terms, base twelve is a different way to list the values associated with numbers otherwise known as counting.

For example in today's world we typically count this way with 10 symbols:

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… Then, to get higher numbers, we put other numbers in front of those ten numbers as such: 10, 21, 32, 43, 54, 65 and so on. This manner of assigning values a name is called the decimal system or 'base 10.'

In the world of Z.E.Z. 4000 they count like this with twelve symbols:

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, E…

Introducing dec (denoted as X), and el (denoted as E) the other integers. In this system, called the duodecimal system, dozenal system, or 'base 12', there 12 integers used to describe a value.

For example, X in 'base 12' is equal to 10 in 'base 10' and E in 'base 12' is equal to 11 in 'base 10.'

With that in mind, 10:00 in 'base 12' would equal 12:00 in 'base 10'. Aka, midnight.

Continuing on … 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1X, 1E, 20.

In 'base 12' 20 is actually equal to 24 in 'base 10'. Starting to get it?

If not I'm sorry. I'm not a mathematician or anything, I just like numbers, so apologies for the rough explanation. If you care enough to figure out base 12 for yourself, type in "Base 12" in the Youtube search bar to get an in-depth explanation by the channel Numberphile.

 _ **(n.n. iii.)**_ \- If you did go ahead and watch the Numberphile video they mention using one-do for ten, two-do for twenty, three-do for thirty and so on. I won't be employing that technique in my story just to keep it simpler. I will say the familiar numbers, so when talking about elements in the story I will simply call it eleven instead of one-do-one. Or decteen (1X) or elteen (1E) instead of one-do-dec and one-do-el. More often than not, I will spell out the number as opposed to just typing the digits. Narration will never use base 12 only base 10, but all the characters, save for Shadow, will relay numbers in base 12. In cases of telling the reader the number of floors of a building, miles to the next city, or other simple, trivial facts base 10 will be used. Occasionally, the narrator will need to explain things in base 12 to clarify something a character has said.

 ** _(n.n. iv.)_** \- By base 10 standards it may not appear to be fifteen minutes until midnight, but in base 12 it is, in fact, fifteen minutes until midnight.

 _ **(n.n. v.)**_ \- Here Liuxia says that she is fifteen, ready to graduate. This is not because she is a genius, but because of base 12. Count with me in base 10.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

Now in Base 12.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, E, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

Lastly, count the amount of numbers in both sets.

Seventeen should be the answer for both. In translation, Liuxia is actually 17 if you count in base 10.

 _ **(n.n. vi.)**_ \- I could take you through how to convert base 12 to base 10 by hand, but why do that when we have the internet. Use your favorite base 12 converter and plug the year 1202 into the duodecimal/dozenal/base 12 side and see what pops out of the decimal/base 10 side ;D.


	3. You've Been Vulcanized

**Z.E.Z. 4000**

Chapter Three:

YBV; You've Been Vulcanized

Simply infatuated with the new book she had found, Liuxia didn't even bother looking where she was walking as she made her way to the eighty-fifth floor where her classes were usually held. She had made the walk several hundred times already, so she did it almost automatically. She only stopped reading to swipe her security card to allow her access to the elevator. When it arrived, she continued reading. As she left it she was still reading. All the while she received the perplexed looks of people, wary of her reading and walking.

In the few minutes she had the book, she had already learned of Eggman's strongest weapon, the Ultima Egg, and how its duplicating properties had made it nearly unstoppable. However, with the heroism of a group known as the Freedom Fighters, Eggman's weapon was eventually destroyed, although it was 24 years after its creation.

Liuxia noticed a particular detail that was very concerning. So far, the book was written entirely in past tense. In other words, these events had already transpired approximately four-thousand years ago. Liuxia was concerned with what Shadow said earlier, he spoke about Dr. Eggman as if he knew him personally which made no sense considering the context of this book.

Liuxia just finished the second chapter and was ready to move onto the third titled: 'Eggman's Adversaries,' but almost as if she had a sixth sense, Liuxia could feel that her destination was drawing near, so she tore her attention away from her book and entered the lecture hall. She arrived later than she was used to, so most of the students were already in their seats.

She waltzed into the large, red-carpeted room and greeted her vulpecular instructor, "Good morning, Professor Fox Eye."

He greeted back, "Indeed it is a good morning, Miss Felinder."

Then, Liuxia headed up the steps to the fifth row and took a seat after making a right and passing another seven chairs. She took her flexible electronic notebook out of her shoulder bag and placed it on her desk as well as the stylus that accompanied it. She had quickly settled in and was ready to begin reading again before an undesirable acquaintance of hers slid into the seat beside her, "Hey, Liuxia!" she heard to her left.

Unsurprisingly to Liuxia, it was Vonner Cass the Osprey.

"Hey, Vonner," she said cordially yet indifferently.

"You ready for today's lecture?" Vonner asked not really planning on any deeper topics to converse on. He just wanted Liuxia's attention.

"Well, I am the Salutatorian, Vonner, I have to be ready," Liuxia said not particularly in the mood for small talk. She pulled out Eggman's biography to indicate that she was busy, but Vonner persisted.

"What do you have there?" he asked leaning closer to Liuxia to get a better look at the book.

"'Eggman: A Biography' by Miles Prower edited and modernized by Caughn the Jackrabbit?"

Liuxia remained silent and attempted to read through his speaking.

"Seems pretty interesting what is it about? Is it for a class?" he persisted.

Liuxia sighed realizing the futility of trying to read this book at this moment in time, "No it is not for a class. It is about an incredibly smart man who was, unfortunately, a villain."

"A villain, huh? So what kind of vi—"

"Alright, class, take your seats and pay attention," Professor Fox Eye said not realizing the favor he did for Liuxia by starting class. "Today's class will be slightly different than usual. Today we have a guest speaker."

"Aw, man," Vonner said wanting to continue his conversation. "See you later Liuxia," Vonner said before walking across the lecture hall to his seat ten rows above Liuxia's own.

Relieved that she wouldn't be bothered now, Liuxia tuned into what the Professor was saying. She originally planned to read her book in class and rewatch the lecture online as they are always recorded, but she was intrigued by this guest speaker she had no clue was arriving.

Professor Fox Eye continued, "Everyone, I would like to introduce you to High Judge Carthage the Echidna. Who was, at one point, one of my best students in this very lecture hall.

As the professor introduced the High Judge, the Echidna walked through the entrance of the lecture hall and was greeted by a hefty round of applause. The High Judge wasn't very old, but his spines were gray and nearly touched the floor behind him. Some of them were decorated with golden rings engraved with strange symbols. His fur was the same shade of gray as his spines, but would occasionally break in areas like his muzzle which was a classic tan color. He wore an intricately designed brown vest beneath a red suede jacket with the pants to match. High Judge Carthage's appearance was strange enough on its own, but there was one feature that stuck out even more than his gray fur or his unapologetically crimson attire. Before anything else, Liuxia noticed his brilliant eyes. They would be solid black if not for the silvery, pupil-like structures that refracted light in different colors much like a CD does.

He walked into the room and waved gently at the students who were pleasantly surprised by his presence. As his eyes darted around looking at all of the young faces, his pupils would change color. It went from green to blue to pink to orange back to blue and pink again and finally to purple. As he began to speak his eyes would continue to swap color with any movement of his head or eyes, "Greetings, honored students. You are probably surprised by my unexpected visit this morning, so I promise that your time here will not be wasted."

His voice resounded pleasantly off of the walls and seemed to be hiding some kind of accent that Liuxia couldn't make out.

High Judge Carthage was about to start speaking again, but someone had barged through the entrance of the lecture hall and fell onto the ground spilling their belongings in a five-foot radius around where they had landed. The albino jackrabbit that barged dramatically into the classroom struggled to get his belongings off of the ground. Seeing this, High Judge Carthage ignored the laughs coming from the rest of the hall and walked over to the student who had unfortunately made a fool of himself. He kneeled down and began helping the boy pick up his things. Surprised at the High Judge's help, the boy almost forgot his manners. He thanked High Judge Carthage, but only loud enough for him to hear it. He promptly apologized for his tardiness and the interruption as he headed to his seat five rows up, to the right, and past another eight seats. He placed his things next Liuxia's and sat down shoving his face into his hands in embarrassment.

Feeling bad for him, Liuxia wanted to say something to him but felt like if she did say anything, she would only make him feel worse. So, she kept her mouth shut. Unknowingly though, she kept staring at the jackrabbit out of the corner of her eye. He took a deep breath and pulled his hands from his face and began listening to the High Judge who had already begun talking. Liuxia also redirected her attention to the guest.

"…and will help you in your upcoming university years and well into your career. Before I tell you that little trick, I want to tell you this. Every single one of you is necessary to the development of New Mobius. No matter where your interests lie, you will be able to use it for the sake of the common good and improve lives. Now for an explanation of the trick I mentioned a moment ago. The trick, simply, is getting experience. Experience is what allows a student to excel above the common rabble and get a head start in doing what they want to do and, if they are early enough, they can even decide to change their mind and choose a different career. So, honestly, the earlier you can secure yourself an internship, the better. Of course, you are all here because you would like to be Librarians, but in the event that you change your mind and go into, say, homeland defense, that would be entirely possible if you go out and get experience beforehand . . ."

High Judge Carthage went on for another hour or so talking about the intricacies of the higher educations and how they will eat a student alive if they do not prepare.

"… Now, any questions?" the High Judge said placing his middle-aged hands behind his back. Many younger hands shot up at once, but the High Judge was certain that a particular one had appeared first, "You, the pink mouse in the third row."

Confidently, the mouse stood up and projected her voice, so the High Judge could hear her, "Hi! My name is Jesse and I was wondering what made you decide to become a High Judge?"

"Ah, hello, Jesse. A very good question. You see, my father was an Iudex Infirma, a weak Judge, so naturally, I became interested in the law, politics and the like. Initially, I wanted to be an enforcement operator, but I'd only be acting based on the premise of old laws that I may not even believe in. So, I decided to become a Judge to help make the rules of our society fairer while still having a hand in helping citizens directly."

Satisfied, Jesse thanked High Judge Carthage and sat down before another wave of hands shot into the air. Being as fair as he could, High Judge Carthage selected the hedgehog in one of the upper rows, "You, sir, what is your question?"

The hedgehog stood up and spoke as loudly and clearly as he could although his voice still wobbled, "Hello, uh, Mister High Judge Carthage, sir," he said stammering a bit, "I was just curious as to why your eyes shine the way they do."

"Ah, another fair question. You see, I switched out both of my eyes for cybernetic replacements, so I can more easily do the work necessary to protect New Mobius. As High Judge, I am responsible for ensuring that the rules of our society are relevant, and are credible to the concerns of the people. This is why laws are updated every single month and voted upon by them. Now, what better way to evaluate these rules of society than to observe it first hand? That's what these are for," the High Judge tapped his face pointing to his black and silver eyes. "Without even thinking, I can tap into any camera in New Mobius and use it as a means to observe the people. Of course, I am not a machine that can look at every camera at once, so I have software that alerts me of potential dangers and I can evaluate the situation myself and adjust the laws accordingly. As for the colors you see, it is a property of the material used to create the lenses of my eyes. With the help of that property, I can see in the dark as well. Any other questions?"

Liuxia raised her hand not really expecting to be called, but almost magically, she saw the High Judge's gaze shift upon her. His eyes appeared to be pure white when he looked directly at Liuxia.

"You. The young lady in the beautiful brown blouse."

Nervously, Liuxia stood up and cleared her throat before asking the High Judge her question, "Hi, my name is Liuxia Felinder and I was just wondering, what are the boundaries of such incredible power? Your special eyes I mean."

"An absolutely understandable concern. As you may or may not know, there are no cameras set up within New Mobius' residential housing of any kind. In addition, Y-bots, the machines known for their spying capabilities, aren't allowed within a two-hundred-meter radius of any living spaces. As for other environments, all workplaces across the city are monitored, including restrooms — within reason of course. There are dozens upon dozens of X-bot sentinels that patrol the streets on foot and via flying morde-car. Naturally, each one is equipped with basic recording equipment. I believe that about sums up the range of my capabilities?"

"Yes, High Judge Carthage. Thank you very much," Liuxia said sitting down and releasing a shaky breath. She felt way safer knowing that she could speak to Shadow without having to keep her voice down now.

After thirty minutes worth of 'Q and A,' High Judge Carthage had to depart as he had other matters to attend to. With a small smile and a wave, he left, a heaping applaud following him as he exited.

The class would only endure for about another twenty minutes or so, then it would be time for independent or collaborative study. Because of the special guest, the lecture was a simple one about the science of what destroyed Mobius's atmosphere; an event known as the Sear. This short note-taking session came with a tradeoff, however. The students, 144 in total, were to gather in groups of three and come up with a presentation by next month which would cover a particular cycle such as the water cycle, phosphorus cycle, or nitrogen cycle and how it was affected by the Sear as well as how it is done artificially in New Mobius.

"Also, don't forget that your 'Achilles Heel' essays are due Friday night!" Professor Fox Eye said before dismissing the class.

The jackrabbit from earlier was the first one to leave class. He was about ten seconds ahead of everyone else, twenty in some cases like Vonner who still had his note-taking equipment strewn across his desk. As Liuxia saw him leave hurriedly, she wondered if he had anyone to work with. She had just finished gathering her things when she heard a call from behind her.

It was Vonner of course, "Hey, Liuxia! Wait up!"

The osprey said running towards her. In an effort to be a good person she did as he asked and waited for him. Only as he reached Liuxia did he get all of his things in his book bag and zipped closed.

As he slung his book bag over his shoulders he thanked Liuxia for waiting and said, "I, uh, wasn't actually expecting you to wait for me, Liuxia, but thanks."

Liuxia turned and headed out the door, Vonner in tow, with the intent of heading back down and looking for a few sources for her presentation.

"Well," she said, "I don't really know anyone in this class other than you, so I figured that you wanted to be partners. Besides, it would be rude for me to just leave you," Liuxia admitted.

"Wait, are you asking me to be partners with you?"

"It would appear so."

"Really? I was gonna ask you, but I was ready to get rejected like when I usually ask to work with you."

"Those times were different, Vonner, we weren't required to work in groups. I only asked you because I have no one else to ask, so don't get any big ideas," Liuxia said cruelly.

"Oh, yeah, totally. Got it." Vonner's feelings were stinging a little after what Liuxia had just said, but he didn't want her to know that. "Anyway, who else can we ask to be our partner? I'm sure most of the other students already have their ideal group in mind."

"Well, what about the guy who dropped his things at the beginning of class?"

"You mean Calentine the Albino?"

"Calentine? Is that really his name?"

"Yeah. I've known him for a while, but he's pretty timid, so I've never actually had a conversation with him. Doesn't talk to anyone, except teachers maybe."

"I felt bad for him earlier when he fell and dropped his stuff everywhere. I wonder what made him late too."

"Well, if you wanna really make him join our group, then we should look for him in the place he usually goes for independent study."

"And where is that?"

"The top floor."

With a swipe of his security card, Vonner escorted Liuxia to the top of the building, floor E9, where she had never actually been despite her four years of study at New Cleus City Library. As she got out, the first thing she noticed was the distinct lack of any students. 19,000 students were enrolled in the N.C.C. Library and none of them were here, except for one, of course. Losing focus for a moment, she became curious and looked out the window to see something she hadn't ever taken the time to appreciate. From where she stood she could see nearly the entirety of New Cleus City.

While she knew New Cleus City was large she never had it put this well into perspective before. The flying morde-cars swarmed around the building in confusing blends of red and white lights in an attempt to brighten up the dark city. Also, for the first time, she noticed how dark the city really was. The only places that were visible were the sidewalks, which were lined with LEDs that illuminated the walking paths from below, and the edges of buildings over ten stories to prevent morde-car accidents. Other than that, there were no other sources of light that were deliberately placed around the city leaving most of the place in darkness. Luckily, a lot of light spilled out of the stores, businesses, and homes to provide a bit more light to those who found themselves walking around in New Mobius. She didn't allow herself to consider the view for too long, she had an objective to complete after all.

All the way at the other end of the balcony Liuxia could see Calentine staring at the two intruders of his domain. He wasn't boisterous enough to attempt to kick them out, so when Liuxia and Vonner finally met his gaze after leaving the window his red eyes shot back down to the pad he was looking at a second ago.

Calentine's enormous ears let him hear Vonner's less than ideal whispering level even at the other end of the circular balcony, "So, what if he rejects us?"

"We will just have to find someone else."

"Aw, man. I hope he doesn't. The quiet ones are usually the prodigy know-it-alls that get assignments done in like two hours."

Calentine even heard Liuxia take a deep breath before moving her hair ever so gently out of her face. "Hey, Calentine, right?" she asked walking up to the lone jackrabbit's desk.

He didn't respond. The familiar silent treatment didn't even phase Liuxia as she continued to introduce herself, "My name is—"

"Liuxia Felinder," he said quietly.

"How did you know?" she said not really thinking about the obvious answer to that question until it was told to her, albeit very awkwardly.

"In class when the High Judge, erm…" he trailed off before recovering, "When you asked your question…you, uh, introduced yourself. I just remembered." As he spoke he squirmed, touching his fingertips together in an attempt to calm himself down.

"Ah, okay. Makes sense, especially considering that we sit right next to one another," Liuxia mentioned in an attempt to make Calentine feel like less of an outsider.

"Anyway, Calentine, I know you are probably busy, so I want to make this brief. I was just wondering if you would like to collaborate with us on the group project. It is only us at the moment and we need a third."

"Are…are you sure? I'm not really the collaborative group type. I, uh, usually just find a way to do it myself."

"Hey, I am sure you will be a fine partner. Plus, this assignment would take forever to do by yourself."

"I, uhm, I don't, um…"

"Please, Calentine," Liuxia said with an ingenuine smile on her face.

Calentine avoided looking at Liuxia and her dimpled smile. He looked towards Vonner to her right instead and instantly regretted it when he saw the yellow gaze of the osprey looking at him.

"Yeah, Calentine, we'd really appreciate it," Vonner said a bit desperately.

He looked back down at his notes as if they would give him the confidence to answer the desperate cat and her friend.

Calentine swallowed and noticed that his throat had already dried up. He opened his mouth and with some difficulty managed to say, "I'd, um...rather not, actually."

Liuxia was a bit disappointed, but she tried to hide it as best she could, "Oh, all right, but if you change your mind…" Liuxia pulled out a sheet of tiny notebook paper out of her bag, quickly writing her number on it, "...feel free to shoot me a text, okay?"

Calentine examined the number she handed him briefly before looking up at Liuxia who hit him with another one of her beautiful smiles in addition to a wave as she walked away, "It was nice meeting you Calentine."

Calentine didn't hear much conversation from Liuxia or Vonner as they left the floor.

As the door of the elevator closed Vonner spoke up, a little annoyed himself, "So much for that. At least we tried, right?"

"I guess," she sighed, "We'll find someone else, but for now we have to find some sources for our presentation."

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

"Jeez, I was kinda planning to go home and play some video games with the guys."

"You better reschedule then. We have work to do."

The day was slipping by quickly for Liuxia, but for Shadow, the flow of time was similar to that of molasses. He hadn't left the tree house since Liuxia went to the Library and he found himself staring at the roof in utter boredom. Earlier he had done a few sets of squats and push up to strengthen himself up a bit, but after that, he had run out of things to do and at this point was considering leaving. He was well enough to move around on his own, so surely he could ask someone where the nearest police station was and be on his way home… if what Liuxia said wasn't true.

Was New Mobius really the last livable place on the planet? He shook the horrifying thought out of his head as he noticed a sound that came from Liuxia's home below. It sounded like the sliding back door opening and closing.

Shadow slowly made his way over to the ladder to sneak a peek and was relieved to find that it was Liuxia, finally home from her…whatever it was that she went to.

Liuxia spotted Shadow and waved excitedly. Shadow lifted his arm lazily and waved back. He moved away from the ladder to allow Liuxia to enter.

Before saying anything else, Liuxia searched through her bag quickly before pulling out the book she had found earlier.

"Shadow. Is this the man you were talking about?" Liuxia said handing the yellowing book to Shadow.

He grabbed it and read the title, "'Eggman: A Biography'… by Miles Prower. Tails wrote this?"

"Who is Tails?" Liuxia questioned, excited by the fact that Shadow found something familiar in the book.

"An ally of mine and apparently the author of this book."

Shadow moved over to the mattress and sat down to further examine the book.

"Scoot over!" Liuxia exclaimed, joining him.

Shadow began to read the prelude which thanked everyone in the Freedom Fighters and their allies, by name, for their efforts in bringing an end to the tyranny of Eggman's most devastating weapon the Ultima Egg. Shadow recognized all of the names.

The prelude went on for another page thanking his closest friends like Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, and Amy for their individual accomplishments. Shadow flipped the page and saw an alarming final few words:

'In memory of Shadow and Rouge: The first to discover the Ultima Egg.'

Liuxia was confused when she read this part along with Shadow. She skipped over it earlier, so she could more quickly find out who Eggman was.

"In memory of Shadow…?" Liuxia said aloud then thought to herself. _This book was made around the time of the destruction of the Ultima Egg,_ _which is supposed to have been destroyed thousands of years ago_ _. Not only is Shadow claiming to know two people associated with this book, but he is also_ _ **mentioned**_ _in the book._

Shadow flipped through the pages one by one absorbing the information there and he noticed a glaring flaw.

"These dates are strange," Shadow noticed. "Some have the letters 'X' and 'E,' some don't."

Liuxia took a look, "What is strange about them? And what do you mean letters? Those are integers, dec and el."

"Dec and el? What are they equal to?" Shadow said confused.

"Um...dec is equal to dec and el is equal to el. They are numbers. You know, zero, one, two, three . . . seven, eight, nine, dec, and el? How do you not know this? This is, like, first grade, Shadow."

"Whatever," Shadow said getting frustrated looking back at the book.

"This has got to be some kind of extravagant joke," Liuxia surmised.

"I assure you this is no joke, Liuxia," Shadow said continuing on reading.

Liuxia was annoyed by the seemingly childish idea that was brewing in her head, but she said it aloud anyway, "Could you be from the past Shadow?"

"Now _you_ must be joking."

"Unless you are a madman or some kind of a prankster, that is the only thing I can think of to explain this. You do not seem to know much about New Mobius and its culture and you are confused about simple things like numbers. What else could that mean?"

Shadow considered it for a moment, "The only thing I remember before coming to this place was passing out in an escape pod, so if I did end up time traveling it must have been in the short time span between me losing consciousness and waking up."

"Well, what if you were asleep for more than a short time. More than a long time? Enough time for your friends to defeat the Ultima Egg without you and for you to get here."

"You're suggesting that I was in some sort of coma for thousands of years until I finally woke up in the middle of the forest? Be realistic. I'd either be brain dead or actually dead by then. Especially considering how little of Mobius I recognize."

"Well, could there have been something to slow your aging process? Some kind of body preservation deal?"

"No. It was just an escape pod that was built for quick retreats. I passed out because of increased gravity due to accelerating upwards."

An idea popped into Liuxia's head, "Do you know how fast you were traveling, exactly?"

"The speedometer maxed out well over the speed of sound. And before I passed out, it still felt like it was getting faster."

"I forgot what it's called exactly, but there is a way to travel ahead in time by going really fast. Do you think that's what may have happened?"

"Sounds far-fetched, but it's the only thing we have that makes the slightest bit of sense."

Shadow's ears twitched at the sound of the sliding door opening again and the voice that accompanied it, "Liuxia, quit your weirdo-reading and help me with something."

"Darn it. It is my brother Vulcan. You have to hide!"

"What? It's the middle of the day can't you just say that I'm a friend of yours?"

"I thought about that, but what if my family sees you later? Then we'll have to keep coming up

with lies to cover for the real reason why you're here. To avoid that mess I figured you should stay out of sight altogether."

Shadow scoffed, "Good thing I was worried about getting caught earlier then," Shadow said walking over to the window.

"Where are you going?"

"Out the window. There's a branch I can use to sit and hide."

"Oh, nice thinking. Go for it."

Shadow headed out of the window and cat-walked over to a part of the branch he would not be seen on and waited.

Before Vulcan made it up the ladder, Liuxia had already sat down on the mattress, pretending to read her book.

"Hey, Liuxer, help me out with my homework. Precalc is suuuper annoying," Vulcan said reaching the top of the ladder and entering the treehouse.

"Real clever," Liuxia said noticing the play on words: Liuxia to Loser. "Are you not in the top ten of your class? What could you possibly need help with?"

"Trig. identities. These things are no joke."

"Oooh, no wonder you need help. I'll tell you what: let me do some studying myself for a few hours, then I'll help you with your precalc stuff.

Vulcan sighed, not used to having to wait for what he wanted, "Fine, just hurry up or whatever."

Just as quickly as he entered, he left and Shadow and Liuxia were alone once more.

Shadow peeked his head in the tree house, "We good?"

"Yep. Come on in. Anyway, as I was saying—" Liuxia said unable to continue her sentence as Shadow drew near.

"What?"

"You...you gotta take a bath Shadow."

"A bath? What for?" Shadow lifted both arms and quickly smelled himself, not detecting an odor of any kind emanating from him.

"You smell strange, well, to me anyway."

"Me? You smell like you took a bath with bleach and ammonia or something. That can't be healthy."

Liuxia smelled her shirt and could only smell peaches, "Liar. I smell great," realizing she was digressing, she returned to the topic at hand, "This is not an argument, Shadow. If you are going to be here, you gotta take a shower or something."

"Fine, but how do you expect me to do that if your brother is in the house."

"Vulcan is always in his room. Just follow me and if he comes then I'll distract him while you go into the bathroom."

"And when he hears the water running and realizes you aren't in there?"

"Well, I'll just pretend that I'm the one showering."

"So you'll be in there with me? Absolutely not."

"Look. I don't particularly like the idea either, but I'll do anything to get rid of that smell."

Shadow shook his head in disbelief that he was actually about to go through with this foolishness.

Just as planned, Liuxia took point and lead Shadow up the stairs. Liuxia could hear Vulcan playing his video games loudly, as usual, so she was confident that her plan would succeed. At the top of the staircase, their path divided into three. Liuxia made a right, as did Shadow when Liuxia pointed straight ahead and whispered, "That is my room. And to the right, there is the shower-room. Once you are done we will sneak you into my room where you can dry off completely and make yourself decent, not that you wear clothes, but you know what I mean."

Begrudgingly, Shadow entered the bathroom. It was dark, so Shadow began to grope the wall trying to find a switch. Noticing this, Liuxia whispered, "Light: on." And the light turned on. Shadow was nearly blinded by the brightness of the bathroom light, especially considering the expansive bathroom was nearly all-white. He blinked to adjust and looked into the mirror to the left of the entrance and looked at himself for the first time in a long while. He looked at his face which appeared ghostly like he hadn't eaten in a while. His arms, although not particularly large before, appeared tiny and fragile. Slightly disturbed by his unhealthy looking state, Shadow walked up to the shower which just looked like a glass box with no obvious entrance. Liuxia closed the door behind them and said, "Lock: door."

Starting to understand, Shadow said, "Open: shower."

But was met with an automated response instead of an automated action, "Command denied. Voice not recognized. Contacting authorities in three, two—"

"Halt: countdown."

"Countdown halted."

Liuxia took a deep breath, "I forgot to warn you about that. The system will not recognize your voice unless we do this: VoCo, meet Shadow."

The Voice Command's feminine voice perked up almost as if it were excited to meet a new person, "Hello Shadow, where are you?"

"Wave your hand," Liuxia said.

Shadow waved, "Hello...VoCo."

"Welcome to the Felinder residence."

"Now VoCo recognizes you, so you can issue her commands."

"Open: shower," Shadow said, trying again.

Just like that, the shower opened on one side allowing Shadow to enter. He kicked off his shoes and removed his gloves before quickly entering the shower with a new shower ball provided to him by Liuxia.

"Let me know when you are done, so I can toss you a towel. I don't want the floor to get wet."

As soon as Shadow stepped into the shower he became doused in a comfortably calibrated water temperature at just the right pressure. It was actually incredibly soothing, but still, Shadow rushed to get out of the shower.

Deliberately, Shadow was keeping the endeavor short, but in that short time, he was easily able to find why exactly Liuxia smelled the way she did. When he used the bar soap available on the soap dish, he got another strong whiff of the sickeningly clean smell that engulfed Liuxia and most likely the rest of her family. Shadow was sure that there wasn't actually ammonia or bleach in the soap considering that his nostrils weren't burning, but the scent was still unpleasant except for the small portion of it that smelled like peaches. He quickly got over the stench and ceased his shower.

"Liuxia," Shadow called.

Without a word, Shadow was tossed a white towel over the wall of the shower. He dried himself partially before stepping out. He looked away from Liuxia, embarrassed at his vulnerability and the fact that he went through with such an idiotic idea. On the other hand, Liuxia, just for a moment, was staring at the glistening hedgehog before pulling her eyes away. She hadn't ever been this intimate with a person and she was unsure how to feel about it, however, she was sure that Shadow was uncomfortable.

So, quietly, Liuxia checked the hallway and lead Shadow to her room where she gave him privacy, so he could dry off completely. Liuxia sat outside the door to her room continuing to read Eggman's biography while waiting for Shadow. She didn't really learn much else about Shadow or his friends in the short part she read.

Shadow knocked on the door, signaling to Liuxia that he had become decent. She slipped in and the two were alone in confined space once again.

"Um. . . .Are we not going back to the tree house?" Shadow inquired noticing a strange air about Liuxia.

"Yeah, of course, but I was just wondering how you felt, you know, after your shower. I mean, you look way better."

"I must look better considering the way you were staring at me as I got out of the shower," Shadow teased.

Liuxia didn't have anything to retaliate with, so a prompt "Screw you" was in order.

"Did I strike a nerve?" Shadow asked, the faintest smirk on his face.

Liuxia scoffed and looked away.

"You don't date much, do you?"

" . . .Well, I'm kind of a loser, so . . . no."

"I can tell why."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Shadow scoffed, "Nevermind. Forget I said anything."

"We've known each other less than a day, what could you have possibly gleaned about my social life in that short time?"

"No need to be so defensive when I didn't even really say anything," Shadow said

Becoming increasingly angry, Liuxia cocked her arm back and threw an open palm towards Shadow's face. He easily caught her by the wrist before she launched another attempted slap with her free hand. Unfortunately for her, Shadow caught that one as well.

Shadow made sure not to grip her arms too tightly but gripped hard enough that she couldn't wrestle from his grip. He knew that it was likely that she would try to kick him so he pulled her in close, so she wouldn't be able to muster any serious force behind her kicks.

Her futile struggling only served to frustrate more until she gave up, sulking into her defeat. Eventually, her tense struggle became a soft surrender. Shadow released her once he felt that she wasn't trying to attack him anymore.

"You done?" Shadow asked.

She sighed, "Yeah," then returned to silence.

Shadow placed his hands on her shoulders. As he did, Liuxia lifted her head and looked him in his eyes.

"Liuxia, I was only joking about you looking at me," Shadow lied.

"I know. I know, I just..." she trailed off.

"I'm naturally a bit cruel, so I really shouldn't be making jokes about you. Sorry."

For apparently no reason Liuxia giggled and Shadow's concern diminished a bit.

"It is okay, Shadow, I just need to grow thicker skin I guess," once Liuxia stopped laughing she donned a more serious look on her face.

She grabbed Shadow's waist and pulled until the two were chest to chest. Liuxia looked up into Shadow's eyes and he looked down into hers.

While Liuxia's eyes closed as she leaned in, Shadow couldn't help but feel bad. Unintentionally, he led her on and now he was in the midst of something he didn't want to be a part of.

Fortunately for Shadow's integrity and Liuxia's feelings, her door silently slid open and revealed her little brother Vulcan standing wide-eyed at the scene before him, pen, notebook, and a mathematics textbook in hand.

"Liuxia?!" Vulcan exclaimed in disbelief. "Who the heck is that guy?"

Liuxia quickly pulled herself away from Shadow, "Vulcan! What are you doing in my room?"

"A better question would be why is _that_ guy in your room?" Vulcan said pointing. "I knew I heard something weird going on in here."

"Vulcan! Get the hell out!"

"Jeez, sis. I never heard you swear before. . ."

Shadow cut in the conversation before it could get any more heated. Grateful for the kid's interruption he said, "Liuxia we may as well tell him."

Liuxia sighed, "Fine, but we should head to the tree house first just in case anyone else comes home."

The trio entered the tree house and so began the explanation of what Shadow was doing in Liuxia's house. They gave Vulcan the long answer of Shadow potentially being ff the future and the short one of Shadow smelling strange and Liuxia forcing him to take a shower.

"So, you might be some kind of time-traveler, Shadow?"

"Unfortunately for me, yes," Shadow replied.

"Dude, that is so COOL! You gotta tell me what kinda time machine you used, so I can be a time-traveler too!"

"Well I'd love to, but I don't even know how I got here, so that's not a possibility."

"Aw man! Oh well, your secret is safe with me, Liuxia," Vulcan said thoroughly impressed with Shadow who also mentioned that he was a spy of sorts against evil people.

"I can help you with your trig. now," Liuxia said.

"Oh, yeah. I almost forgot about that," Vulcan admitted.

"Head inside and I'll meet you there. I, uh, gotta talk to Shadow quick."

"Will do. By the way Shadow, I have a lot of questions to ask you later, 'kay?"

"Sure, I guess," the hedgehog replied not really receiving an option in the matter.

Vulcan left, leaving Liuxia and Shadow alone for yet another occasion.

"I guess it was better that he found out. One less person to hide you from," Liuxia admitted.

"Definitely. Less for me to worry about during the day for sure."

The conversation dipped into silence but eventually, Liuxia randomly perked up again, "Can I be honest with you, Shadow?"

"Sure."

"I am glad we didn't kiss back there. I felt really unlike myself."

"Can I be honest with you?"

She nodded.

"So am I. I had no intention of leading you on or anything. Considering how awkward it is now and we didn't even do anything, I can't imagine what it would be like if we actually went through with something like that, especially since we barely know each other. Let's just try to forget about it."

"Agreed."

Eventually, Liuxia departed from the treehouse to help Vulcan with his homework. Later in the evening when Liuxia was nodding asleep in her bed, her phone woke her with its buzzing and loud ringtone. Annoyed, she sat up and reached for it on her nightstand. She was half expecting it to be Vonner, as he did have her number, but other than that she couldn't make a decent guess as to who it could be. As she looked at her bright phone in the darkness. Her eyes watered for a moment, but once they cleared up she noticed that she got a text from some number with an area code of '000' meaning that they lived in Dead End City.

She tapped the screen and opened the message and read:

'Hello Liu-Xia, (I hope I spelled that right) it's Calentine. I know it is really late, so I hope I didn't disturb your sleep, but I change my mind. I would like to be part of your presentation group if you didn't already find a third person.'

 _Z.E.Z. 4000~_

 _No Nerdy Note Time!_ :(


	4. Freedom of Larceny

**Z.E.Z. 4000** Chapter Four:

FoL; Freedom of Larceny

Calentine sat at a desk in the Library, waiting. It was nearly noon and he was on the second-floor balcony, having pre-reserved three computers to use for the day: 228, 229, and 230. He sat at desk 228. While he waited, he had already found a few potential sources that could be used for a presentation including one: "The Greatest Sear." The night before, it was decided that the presentation would consist of twenty-four slides and utilize seven sources, so Calentine went ahead and found a few that he thought were viable candidates.

Anxiously, the jackrabbit checked the time, it was three minutes until noon and there was no sign of his group. He was always told to be fifteen minutes early and that's what he had done today in order to make a good first impression. Calentine just figured that everyone would come early, so he came even earlier than fifteen minutes, so he could show his dedication to the group project. Or maybe they planned to be late on purpose, so they could spend the least time possible with a downer like him. He noticed that his foot was tapping the ground vigorously and he forcibly stopped himself. Calentine took a deep breath trying to get such negative thoughts out of his head. It worked to calm him down for a moment. Before another negative thought could come to mind, Liuxia and Vonner opened the door to the ten-computer pod.

Slightly startled as they came in the room, Calentine forgot to say hello. He just stared, like a deer in headlights, at the two. In their hands, they had brown bags which must've contained some kind of food considering the smell. They also were wearing clothes that didn't seem as uptight as his. Calentine wore an expensive looking polo shirt with short khakis and his favorite white sneakers. He also wore a stylish watch on his left wrist. On the other hand, Vonner wasn't wearing anything except the rough pair of sneakers he usually wore while Liuxia wore an olive pair of short shorts accompanied by a tan wide neck sweatshirt that hung down off her right shoulder.

Calentine stopped staring as soon as he noticed what he was doing and greeted the two, "Hey, guys."

"Calentine! I am so glad you decided to change your mind," Liuxia squealed as she walked into the room.

"Yeah, I took a look at the, uh, criteria and noticed that I really couldn't manage this alone, so thanks for letting me join you."

"No problem at all. You hungry?" Liuxia asked holding up one of the bags in her hand. "Vonner and I decided to get lunch before we came here. _Somebody_ made the entire endeavor take way longer than it needed to. I hope you weren't here long."

"Oh, you're not late. I pretty much just got here too," Calentine euphemized. "Anyway, I found a few things that you guys might be interested in, maybe."

Calentine spun the monitor around to show Liuxia his reference page. She was impressed.

"Oh, my. You found all of these by yourself?" Liuxia asked.

"Yeah. You could, uh, look over'em if you want. See if they're to your liking."

"Sure I could get started on that. Oh, and are you hungry? We bought a little something for you."

"You guys really didn't have to do that for me," Calentine said, his heart beginning to flutter in gratitude.

That is until Vonner said, "Eh. Don't think too much of it. They had a 'buy two get one free' deal at Alec's."

"Oh, uh, good to hear you didn't waste money on me. I would have felt bad," Calentine said.

"I would not have minded, either way, the food there is super cheap," Liuxia said handing Calentine his food and sitting down at the desk opposite him.

Vonner sat beside her at computer 230 just as Calentine had wanted and the group began to work diligently on their project. At first work was slow as ideas were just being pulled together, but eventually, the group became a well-oiled machine that was getting slides done at a pace of roughly one per every hour or so.

Calentine would set up the slide adding photos and crediting as needed. He was also working on the reference page as they went along in the project. Liuxia would add the information to the slide ensuring that it was relevant and brought everything together. As for Vonner, he was tasked with looking up online sources the group may find useful.

It had been two hours since they had begun and Vonner was beginning to feel bored already. He had a throbbing headache as well as an aching stomach, so he decided to get up and take a break to visit a vending machine somewhere far away. He almost regretted working with Liuxia now since he forgot how hard a worker she was, something he was not quite accustomed to. The only reason he joined her was so he could hang around her more often in hopes that she would take a liking to him. Unfortunately for him, his extended absence only distanced himself from her.

Currently, Liuxia and Calentine were nose deep in their fourth slide when Liuxia piped up in her usual fashion, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

Calentine's heart began to thump heavily as he heard her inquiry. He'd prefer she just ask the question as opposed to requesting permission to ask him something.

"Um, sure?" he responded as calmly as he could.

"This may make me sound a bit nosey, but how come you seem so anxious all the time?"

Not prepared for such a personal question, Calentine couldn't even attempt to gather the words necessary to answer. The only sounds that came out of his mouth were various fragments of ahs, ums, and wells. Liuxia noticed how much he was struggling and immediately regretted her curiosity, "You do not have to answer if you do not want to, Calentine. I did not want to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted to know more about you."

"No, no. You just caught me off guard is all," Calentine said finishing one of the bullet points on the slide. "Well, where should I start? I think it really comes down to my family's expectations of me, that may, uh, have to do with my 'anxiety,' I guess you could call it."

"Oh, wow. So, what are your parents like?" Liuxia asked prying even further.

Naturally, Calentine first reaction was to lie to Liuxia, but he decided to tell the truth, feeling a strange sense of security around her, "They're, uh… They're demanding to say the least. Especially my dad, Caughn. I love them, of course, but they've always expected what I felt was too much. Perfect grades, valedictorianship, student of the month nominations, a seat in the student council, impeccable H.E.A.T. scores, and whatever else would make me look good on a New Mobius University application. On top of that my parents still want me to do idiotic things like chores to teach me 'responsibility' or whatever as if I don't already have a lot of b—" (n.n. i).

Calentine paused noticing that he was getting quite worked up. He took a painful breath and shook his head dismissing his growing feeling of animosity.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped all that on you. I…" Calentine said trailing off into an uncomfortable silence as he gradually looked down to his lap.

"No it is alright, it was really rude of me to question you like that. I would not have asked if I knew you were going through so much," Liuxia said.

"It's alright. It felt liberating, almost, so, uh, thanks for being rude," Calentine said not expecting to get an amused smile out of Liuxia.

Her dimpled smile shook his heart enough to force a smile out of him also.

"I think we made decent progress today, so how about we go do something fun once Vonner gets back?"

"Fun?"

"Yeah, like a walk through the city or something. We could look at the street shows or just hang out if you want."

"Um, I never really, 'went for a walk' before. I mean, obviously I used to walk to school and all that, but I never really walked expressly for the sake of taking a walk."

"Well, why not?"

"It just seemed like a dumb way to end up hurt or something."

"How would you wind up hurt on a walk?"

"I dunno, it's just scary."

"I mean it will be three of us, so we can watch each other's backs, m'kay?"

When Vonner returned four minutes later then the trio took a break. Deciding to go for a walk after all.

All the while Liuxia and company were at the Library, Shadow had been doing nothing but reading to entertain himself. He didn't exactly have a wide variety to choose from, so he settled for the biography. He began from the front of the book and had already made it a fourth of the way through.

Often, the translator of the book would leave annotations allocated to particularly information heavy parts of the book, so in the 'Eggman's Adversaries' chapter—more specifically the short overview of Sonic the Hedgehog—Shadow took note of the related annotation and its glaring falsehood:

 _*Sonic the Hedgehog was so impactful upon the future of Mobius that he is featured in the Freedom Memorial in downtown N.C.C. as one of the bearers of the six Chaos Emeralds along with Massacus Cleus, the late Governor of New Mobius._

"Six, huh?" Shadow murmured to himself, wondering if he had something to do with that error.

The Chaos Emerald was not in his possession currently, but he had no other logical explanation. Shadow is reputable for always carrying the green Chaos Emerald and his encounter with the Ultima Egg was no exception. Shadow considered the likelihood of him losing it in some sort of crash, but he only faintly remembers the woods that he was found in and there wasn't any green glow that he remembered other than the light Liuxia provided when first finding him. Sitting up from his lying position, Shadow's interest was now piqued. He had to go visit this Freedom Memorial. Without bothering to close the book, Shadow quickly got up and left in search of the Memorial.

He stepped out onto the glowing blue sidewalk and looked up for a moment and just admired the vastness of New Cleus City. There had to be thousands of cars floating dozens of feet above the ground buzzing around the tall buildings erected so high the majority of their lengths could be seen above the houses across the street from Liuxia's home. The only thing that rivaled their height were their numbers. All that, and the city still sparkled in the darkness like a cut emerald.

Mesmerized, Shadow looked back down at the ground which still glowed strongly, but not blindingly. As he walked, he kept a mental note of the route he took as to avoid getting lost. Within fifteen or so minutes of walking towards the brightest part of town, Shadow was already beside one of the towering skyscrapers. His walk started off lonely, but in time he would no longer be able to walk in a straight line as bundles of people moved in opposing directions, like the wind that would summon a tornado.

As a testament to the sheer number of people that live in N.C.C., note that there are no ground vehicles that force pedestrians onto the sidewalks. In other words, the streets are still packed with roughly twice the amount of space one would normally get to walk in.

After he felt like he had about reached the edge of the downtown area. Shadow stopped and asked a man at the corner for directions.

"Excuse me," Shadow said walking up to a tall crocodile wearing a tuxedo and its matching attire, "Do you know where Freedom Memorial is?"

"Freedom Memorial? Uh, just head straight down Sine Street, make a left on 23rd, go all the way down past Euler Road and it should be on the left somewhere, I think."

"Sine, 23rd, Euler. Thanks," Shadow said beginning to head in that direction.

"Hey, if ya' get lost again," the croc shouted at Shadow, "Just use one of the map terminals near the buildings!"

"Got it," Shadow shouted back before heading for Freedom Memorial.

Shadow managed to avoid getting lost in the city by following the croc's directions to the letter. He just saw the floating above the street that read 'Euler Road.' He kept walking past and patiently waited for the Memorial to pop up on the left side of the street. Instead of finding the Memorial, Shadow was lead to a sign pointing out the direction of it. He followed the consecutive row of signs until finally, they stopped just before a clearing that Shadow presumed was Memorial Square. There weren't as many people there as on the street, but it was still fairly crowded.

The square was teeming with what appeared to be the only life in all of New Cleus City. Powerful trees lined the buildings to the left and right. An array of flowers could be found in the center of the square surrounding the large fountain there. The glow from beneath remained the same as before but seemed all the more beautiful when it shone on the green leaves on the square.

Shadow noticed something that was missing, though. There was not a single leaf on the ground, not even dead ones. Upon closer inspection, the trees weren't nestled in soil either. In addition to that, they had no roots and all the trees looked like exact copies of one another. Shadow was strangely disappointed when he came to the conclusion that they were fake. Now he questioned if the "woods" Liuxia found him in was purely aesthetic as well.

Shadow sat down on a nearby bench. He was uncharacteristically tired. This was the most he had moved in a few days, so he knew why he was fatigued, but that didn't make him any less annoyed at the fact. Shadow looked around confused not sure what exactly he was supposed to be looking for. The name Memorial Square says it all: the Chaos Emeralds should be here, but they were nowhere in sight.

Just as Shadow was about to get up and ask someone where the Memorial was located, he heard an alarm sound directly in front of him. The blue lights on the ground turned to yellow signaling those in the area to yield. Shadow was some distance away from the yellow lit squares, so he observed curiously from a distance. In time the yellow squares lowered slightly before disappearing completely. The floor vibrates slightly as statues rose through the square holes. The statues, seemingly carved out of marble, rose up showing six men each holding a Chaos Emerald.

The design of each one was intricate and only slightly larger than life-sized. They surrounded the fountain, their backs turned to it while holding one of the supposed six Chaos Emeralds in hand. On the fountain itself, it even seemed like there was a pedestal large enough to hold something like the Master Emerald. Immediately Shadow looked for the one who resembled Sonic the most. He stood up and inspected three of them before finally finding the statue which was named 'The Blur.'

Shadow noticed that there was both an approximated birthday and death day on Sonic's Memorial. That strongly supported Liuxia's hunch. There was good chance Shadow unintentionally outlived all of the Freedom Fighters by traveling to the future.

"Dammit," he said under his breath, his heart sinking.

Also, just as he anticipated, the green Emerald was the very Emerald that was missing from all of the six displays. His journey with it to the future must have made it all, but forgotten to history. Shadow found this strange though. They could recall the events of something four thousand years in the past, but not one of the seven most influential artifacts on the planet.

Shadow looked up at the familiar face on the statue which, for a few thousand year difference, looked fairly accurate. Everything from the number of spikes on his head and back to the idiot smile on his face looked genuine as if they had captured him mid-run then placed a crown on his head and a red Emerald in his hand. It was not uncanny but made Shadow uncomfortable nonetheless.

To get his mind away from his discomfort, Shadow began to think about how he would get one of these Emeralds. The six statues of the Memorial were surrounded by some kind of force field that didn't hurt to touch as Shadow figured, but felt hard like it was encased in bulletproof glass. There had to be some way to disable it.

Considering how vulnerable these Emeralds seemed, Shadow saw it almost as a challenge to retrieve one of them. Shadow looked around briefly. It didn't take a sleuth to realize that one of the buildings nearby had to manage the lights and displaying of these statues. And sure enough, Shadow noticed a white, skeleton-like robot access and enter one of the doors of the surrounding buildings. Shadow decried the security scanner, so he didn't bother trying to sneak in from that direction. He circumnavigated the building to find a more person friendly entrance facing the street. The stone of the building eventually broke into a glass entrance where it seemed patrons to an art gallery, namely the Memorial Gallery, were welcome.

Instead of entering right away, Shadow leaned up casually against a map terminal and spied through the entrance of the building. Even from the street, he could see various paintings and a sculpture made from white stone being admired by the people strewn throughout the room. Figuring there was nothing suspicious about entering, Shadow pushed through the revolving door and was greeted by hair-raising cold and the smell of paint.

The decor was not robotic and stiff like everywhere else in New Mobius. The floors and bottom parts of the walls were made of a mahogany parquet contrasting from the veined white marble upper walls divided by an oak chair rail. There was also the baseboard which was chiseled into a flower pattern so beautiful that it was practically a work of art itself. Each painting in the room was found on either the walls of the room or on one of four sides of the six pillars in the room which followed the same mahogany to white marble scheme.

As inconspicuously as he could, Shadow walked up to the statue in the center of the room. He did a small circle around the entire thing so he could also look at the entire room. He saw two unlabeled doors, but he was fairly confident that no power room would be unlabeled. He also noticed a flight of stairs in the back of the room. The sign beside them warned that only authorized personnel belonged beyond this point, so he waited near the step for a while and waited for any prying eyes to disperse before slyly making his way to the second floor. He peeked his head above the floor and checked if there was anyone in sight. Not a soul was present. He continued up the staircase and kept on the lookout for any cameras as he walked through the corridor.

Nothing on the second floor popped out to him either until he saw a metal door that stuck out like a sore thumb. He took cautious steps toward it should there be any kind of surveillance systems at work. This time there was no security scanner, just a good ol' fashioned doorknob. Unfortunately, though, it was locked tight.

Shadow weighed his options. He could likely break the doorknob and enter, but who's to say that the door isn't wired up to a silent alarm. He could of course search for the key, but he dismissed this option considering how he hadn't run into any security who might have one and didn't know who owned the place.

In short time, Shadow decided to destroy the knob after all. If he did get in trouble, he'd likely have the Chaos Emerald before anything that posed a threat to him showed up. With a swift kick, Shadow buried the doorknob into the door and pushed it slowly open. The room looked more like the modern streets of New Mobius than the rustic museum with all of the technology and blue LEDs lighting the ground. There was a levitating chair opposite the entrance of the room. He sat down in it and as he did, a holographic display popped up on the control panel he hadn't even realized was there.

After studying the display for a while, Shadow tapped on the 'Mem-Sqr' button. And was brought to another screen titled: "Power Settings." To his right, he saw a live feed of Memorial Square. He utilized this to ensure he was making the correct selections. There was one button on the display beneath the force field category that seemed to be what Shadow was looking for. Among other options such as field opacity and color, Shadow saw the field on and field off switch.

"Bingo," Shadow said pressing it and looking to his right to confirm if his selection was correct. It was as he saw the slightly opaque force fields disappear from around the statues in the square.

Shadow stood up and was about to quickly return to the square, but before he could even leave the room he was confronted by three X-bots at the door. Each tall, menacing, and white like snow or a skeleton picked clean by vultures.

Surprised, Shadow took a few steps back. The X-bots didn't attack Shadow and were only attempting to capture him, but this did not occur to him before he kicked one's head clean off of its shoulders.

The X-bots' otherwise white eyes turned a bloody crimson as they fixated upon the culprit of the offense.

"Hostile threat detected. Hostile threat detected," the machines echoed in unison, "Combat mode initiated."

The machines quickly leaped forward and closed the gap between them and Shadow at an alarming rate. Shadow still managed to evade the incoming attack, but as he jumped away one of the bots managed to grab his leg and throw him to the ground. Before the other one clenched a robotic fist driving it into Shadow's chest.

"Submit," the machine ordered, but this only served to anger Shadow.

Gritting his teeth through the pain Shadow brought his knees to his chest and kicked up, sending the robot to its back. Shadow landed on top of it and with a single punch crushed its head and had just enough time to dodge the kick coming from the last X-bot. He tried to finish the last one off in a similar fashion to the first, but that plan was readily thwarted. The machine easily dodged the flying kick and launched a counterattack which connected to Shadow who was still in mid-air. He was driven into the wall by the force of the blow before collapsing into a heap on the ground. He looked up at the last X-bot and examined it closely. The white frame, skeleton-like body, and adaptive learning all reminded him of the Xylo-bots Eggman had created. But how and why were they being employed by New Mobius authorities?

The last X-bot took a few steps forward but made it no further as Shadow curled himself into a ball and spun rapidly before launching himself at the X-bot, shattering it into dozens of unrecognizable pieces.

Shadow panted heavily finally realizing how out of touch with combat he was in this state. He didn't allow himself adequate time to recover before heading back downstairs and into Memorial Square. By the empty gallery, Shadow assumed that an evacuation had been administered. This assumption was backed by the strange looks he received as he darted out of the gallery and towards Memorial Square. When Shadow arrived, people were gathered curiously around the six statues wondering why exactly the field had been switched off. Near one of the statues there seemed to be a commotion going on involving some people and a few X-bots.

As Shadow drew closer he saw a familiar face slip out of the crowd with a dull red object in hand.

"Vulcan?" Shadow wondered skating quickly towards the center of Memorial Square.

"Shadow! This is what you're after, isn't i—" Vulcan was beginning to say before he was snatched up by an X-bot using only a single arm. "Hey, lemme go!"

Seeing the boy in distress drove Shadow mad. He accelerated, dashing past dozens of curious onlookers until he was upon his target. He put the force of his entire body behind the drop-kick he delivered to the X-bot's CPU located in its chest. As the machine malfunctioned, it dropped Vulcan who scrambled behind Shadow who then gestured for the Emerald.

Vulcan placed it gingerly in the hedgehog's hand.

"It's me they're after. You need to get out of here," Shadow said

As the crowd saw Shadow attack the X-bot chaos ensued as everyone ran for their lives.

Vulcan handed a dulled red emerald to the hedgehog, "I grabbed it for you. I saw that you were reading about the Square, so—"

"Go home Vulcan. You shouldn't have followed me."

Vulcan. whose feeling of concern had met its maximum, reluctantly turned and ran away from the Square just as another team of X-bots arrived.

Liuxia, Vonner, and Calentine were less than an hour into their walk around the city and heard the commotion going on three blocks away from the bench they were sitting on.

Vonner was in the middle of eating a hot dog he bought from a street vendor when Calentine piped up, "You guys hear that? All that screaming?"

Vonner with his mouth stuffed simply shrugged in reply.

"Yeah, I hear it," Liuxia said looking down the street. "Wait that's near Freedom Memorial isn't it?"

"Prob'ly," Vonner said his mouth still half stuffed.

"Weird nothing ever really goes on here, especially downtown."

Immediately Liuxia's mind drifted to Shadow. She didn't want to think the worst, but it was difficult because who in all of New Mobius would fight with the heavy arm of N.C.C. authority.

As she had managed to convince herself that the likelihood of Shadow being involved was far too low, a broadcast on all of the monitors in the city including those on skyscrapers and smartphones had Shadow's likeness plastered all over them with the voice of Carthage the Echidna issuing a calm warning, "Citizens of New Mobius, this black and red hedgehog is currently being pursued by X-bots through the streets of New Mobius. If you spot him, do not interact with him. I repeat: do not interact with him. The X-bots will de-escalate this situation as readily as possible. Thank you for your time."

Worried now, Liuxia stood up to see if she could get a better view of the situation. The people on the street parted like cracked stone giving in to the blow of a hammer. And as she suspected Shadow was leading a group of persistent robots through the crowd.

"Oh, no," Liuxia said beginning to panic. "We have to get back to my car! Hurry!"

Liuxia began running back the way they headed from the Library. Vonner and Calentine looked at one another and shrugged before darting after Liuxia.

"Hey, wait up!" Vonner yelled discarding the last bit of his hot dog, throwing it to the ground.

Liuxia, Vonner, and Calentine weren't as efficient when it came to dividing a crowd, so they spent a few minutes, shoving, bobbing, and weaving through the crowd.

"Liuxia slow down!" Vonner said beginning to get left behind.

Meanwhile, Calentine was too tired to speak. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he ran for even this short a time.

Liuxia finally made it to her morde-car directly in front of the Library, but by that time, she had lost Vonner and Calentine to the crowd, but she had no time to waste, so she had no choice but to leave them behind. She entered her car, booted it up and was off. She took manual control of it then began receiving a call from her brother.

She was tempted to ignore it, but something told her to answer.

"Liuxia! You gotta find Shadow!" her younger brother yelled over the phone without so much as a hello.

"Yeah, on it now," she said. She paused for a moment then resumed, "Look I am pretty busy here. Any other pertinent information? If not—"

"I know why the X-bots are after Shadow."

"You do?"

"He stole a Chaos Emerald...and I helped him do it. Please don't be mad sis."

"Wha- Why? Why would he do that and why would you…" Liuxia realized she couldn't deal with this at the moment. "We will talk about this when I get home, Vulcan, I have to go. This is _not_ over."

In time Liuxia found herself directly above the hot pursuit but was unsure how to ease the situation. She could swoop in and try to pick Shadow up but at the risk of being seen and her morde-car being identified as hers which would spell disaster for her and her family. They'd be seen as accessories to his crime. Including what her brother told her, Liuxia could figure that Shadow is already wanted for a bunch of separate charges that would be deemed worthy of lengthy incarceration. Liuxia wasn't sure what Shadow was thinking trying to steal a Chaos Emerald, but she still didn't have the heart to abandon him.

Back at the Library, Vonner and Calentine had finally made it back to where Liuxia's car was, but they were a tad bit late.

"Damn!" Vonner said as he realized that Liuxia had taken off already, "How the hell does she run so fast?"

Calentine came stumbling behind a few seconds later, his breaths labored and chest pounding like a mailman at the door. He placed his hands on his knees and took a few moments to catch his breath before walking over to the steps of the Library and plopping down tiredly on them.

"What do we do now?" he finally managed to say to Vonner.

Vonner took a seat next to Calentine and placed his head on his hand which rested on his knee, annoyed, "I have no clue. I guess our best bet is to just chill here 'til she gets back and if she doesn't get back we'll message her. If she doesn't answer… well, we just leave, I guess. No point staying here. But now that I think of it, she _was_ my ride. Guess I'll enjoy my forty-five-minute walk home."

"I could give you a ride if you want."

"I mean if you insist."

There was a pause as Calentine was still breathing fairly heavily, but he eventually spoke up again, "This is why I don't leave my house."

"That mess doesn't justify being a shut-in 'cause that was a once in a lifetime thing. Nothing ever happens in N.C.C."

"Well I'm not even from here, so I wouldn't know. Dead End City can be pretty scary."

Vonner scoffed, "Yeah Dead End City _is_ like the busiest city. Regardless, I think your problem is that you just dunno how to speak to people."

"I guess you're right about that, uh, should we text Liuxia now?"

"You text her, she'd probably just ignore me if I did," Vonner said rolling his eyes.

Not sure how to respond to that, Calentine simply whipped out his phone and began to quickly type up a message to Liuxia.

"By the way, Calentine, can I just call ya' Cal? 'Calentine' is a bit of a mouthful."

"Oh, um, sure," Calentine responded before pressing send.

Liuxia wouldn't be able to receive the message as her mind was elsewhere. On the edge of town, a crowd had gathered around the fight between Shadow and the pursuing X-bots. He looked tired and was holding his left shoulder as he took a bad hit from one of them earlier.

Liuxia landed in the large clearing surrounded by onlookers and quickly ran into the fray.

"Citizen," one of the X-bots addressed, "Stand clear. I repeat, stand clear."

She ignored the warning, drawing nearer and nearer to Shadow, "Shadow come with—"

Liuxia was cut off by Shadow who had trapped her in a headlock and slowly began to drag her towards her car. Liuxia thought this was some clever plan the hedgehog had in mind, but the fact that she could not breathe told her otherwise. She tried to pry his arm from around her throat, but her struggling had no effect. The X-bots moved in but were stopped when Shadow began shouting.

"Stay where you are! Another step and this one is finished!" he said as if he were a crazed maniac.

Now directly beside her car, Shadow loosed her from the headlock, but still kept a hold of her hair.

"Open the door," he ordered.

Liuxia did not hesitate in doing so. He stepped in, then dragged her in along with him. In only moments they were flying once more and became lost among the thousands of cars in the N.C.C., the crowd below them awed and flabbergasted.

In the car, Shadow took a deep breath, then looked over to Liuxia who was staring at him in terror, balled up on the left side of the car.

"Oh come on, you couldn't tell that was acting?" Shadow said dryly.

"Acting?! I nearly passed out, jerk!" Liuxia said kicking him square in the shoulder he was holding earlier.

Shadow didn't cry out, but he did grimace and grit his teeth from the pain.

Liuxia gasped realizing what she did, "Sorry, sorry! I did not mean that!"

"Felt like you did," Shadow sighed gripping his shoulder gingerly, "I guess I deserved it."

Liuxia giggled in her usual fashion, completely opposite her earlier behavior, "Yeah you did."

Shadow was finally beginning to relax, then Liuxia's car began acting strangely. Without warning, the car made a sharp turn left. Liuxia was nearly thrown to the other side of the car.

"What?" Liuxia said surprised by the random change in direction.

"What's up the with the car, Liuxia?" Shadow said unfamiliar with the normalcies of future vehicles.

Liuxia looked out of the front window and noticed that they were headed towards the terminal which connects N.C.C. to the Branch, the judiciary capital of New Mobius. She immediately put two and two together.

"The government or… whoever probably overrode my car's system and is driving us straight to the police near the edge of town"

"If they could have done all of that, why not just stop the car from starting all together?"

"Well, it takes a while to get clearance for these kinds of things considering that my morde-car is private property. Legalities aside, we can't let them take us to the Branch."

"How exactly do we stop that from happening then?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," Liuxia said admitted.

Shadow scoffed when he saw they were about to fly directly beside a rooftop, "I do. How do I open this door?"

"No, no, no, no. We are not—"

"Nevermind."

Shadow grabbed Liuxia and without a second thought, opened the door and launched himself towards the rooftop. Trying to ignore her questioning and screams, Shadow tucked and rolled to cushion the landing a bit for himself. Although scared and jostled a bit, no damage came to Liuxia. She'd have a lot of fun both getting down from this building and explaining to her parents where her car went.

Liuxia rubbed her temples to ease the headache she garnered from her parents' scolding.

While Shadow ran to her house, she rode on his back while calling home letting her mother know what had happened that day. She had only been in her house for two seconds before being subject to interrogation. She understood their concern, but was annoyed by it like any teenager would be. She had mostly told them the truth but sprinkled in enough white lies to protect Shadow's identity. She sat on her bed alone when she heard a knock at the door.

"Come in," Liuxia insisted.

The door swung open just wide enough for Vulcan to fit his head through and look regretfully at Liuxia.

"Hey," she said calmly.

"Hey," Vulcan echoed walking into the room and sitting next to his sister.

"So what exactly possessed you to help Shadow steal the Chaos Emerald?"

Vulcan shrugged.

"Gonna need a little more than that. You did it for a reason. And if you are worried about me being mad at you, just keep in mind that never stopped you before."

"I went to check on Shadow earlier and realized that he was gone. He left his book open on a page about the Memorial. With what I knew about his past, I couldn't help but assume where he was headed, so I went too."

"And that transformed you into some kind of thief?" Liuxia said still confused.

"No, I just really wanted to help him. He's just super cool, ya' know? And since you seem comfortable with him, I just figured that he wasn't out to harm anyone."

"And you were right, he was not out to hurt anyone, but that does not mean that his intentions were not wrong or misplaced."

Vulcan noticed his sister's strange idiolect that she adopted only a short time ago. He didn't add on to her previous point and sharply changed the subject of their conversation.

"When are you gonna stop speaking like that?"

"You already know why I speak like this, Vulcan. Do not try to change the subject."

"I'm not. It's just...it makes me kind of sad when I listen to you. I don't think you realize how much you sound like her. I feel like Granny is yelling at me all over again."

Liuxia chuckled, "She hated when you called her that."

"She did, but she hated when I mocked her even more…"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying you don't need to reenact her life to keep her in your heart."

"I'm not reenacting her life. It just so happens that I decided to pursue interests that were similar to hers,"

"You're lying. I can tell because your nose flares when you lie."

Liuxia scoffed, "Whatever, Vulcan. Just get out."

Used to being kicked out of her room, Vulcan simply shrugged and waltzed out of the room. As he did, their mother called for them. Naturally, they curiously headed down the stairs and saw their parents locked into some kind of public announcement playing on the television. Liuxia recognized the man speaking on the screen. It was Governor Athis Cleus about to deliver a lengthy speech.

"Greetings all, my name is Athis Cleus, the Governor of New Mobius and I am here today to regretfully inform the people of New Mobius that our researchers have strong reason to believe that another enormous solar flare is rearing to occur in roughly three days time. Inhabitants of planets with a healthy atmosphere have nothing to worry about when it comes to solar flares but as you know, our home, Mobius is no such place. With the Ardent defense systems created by Dr. Kilos Prower, we have been able to shield ourselves from both the heat and radiation coming from our mother star, so that we may remain on the surface…"

"What's going on?" Liuxia said sitting beside her mother, Hora.

"I have no clue. I'm hoping that wherever this little speech is going, it doesn't end in bad news," Hora said.

"Shh," Liuxia's father insisted, tuning back into the television.

"...Though we have shielded ourselves from minor solar flares in the past, this one comes with the extra threat of disrupting all systems on New Mobius, essentially leaving all citizens of New Mobius exposed to the heat and radiation of the sun for any number of hours. In the background, our most brilliant engineers and librarians have been hard at work constructing the Second Freedom, a star traveling vessel, in the hopes of taking all of New Mobius' inhabitants and colonizing a new, healthy planet where we can thrive and expand…"

Hora gasped but remained silent. Vulcan squealed in excitement while his sister and father remained locked in.

"...However, these hopes have been cut short with the news of this enormous solar flare. Cutting to the chase, the Second Freedom had mostly been built already with the help of the X-bots, but currently only has one of three housing bays installed. To install the next two would take a minimum of eight weeks which is time we do not have. Unfortunately, at one third its full capacity, the Second Freedom can only hold a maximum of two and a quarter million people. Yes, we are aware that over seven million people live in New Mobius and it would be painful to leave anyone behind, so in the coming days we will be evaluating citizens and their usefulness to see who will be brought along and who would be left behind. My deepest sympathies and thank you for your time."

All the positive energy and excitement had disappeared from Vulcan and despair had run rampant throughout the room like a plague.

"Wait, what? So we're just gonna abandon two-thirds of our people?! It's bad enough that we're being uprooted, but now it's a gamble whether we'll see our family and friends survive or not?!" Vulcan yelled at the television as if his voice could make it through.

"Vulcan, calm down," his father said.

"Calm down? How can somebody be calm at a time like this? And that's—"

Vulcan stopped speaking on account of the aching in his chest and his watery vision, "...And that's only _if_ we get chosen."

There was another one who was grief-stricken at the news. Shadow. Listened from just below the windowsill in the front of the house. He was less concerned about his fate, but the fact that he will only have two more days to figure out a way to get to the past.

 _Z.E.Z. 4000~_

 _Nerdy Note Time!_

 _n.n. i._ : H.E.A.T. stands for Higher Education Aptitude Test.

 _P.S. Sorry for the long wait. Senior year sucks._


	5. Make it Through

**Hey! Just wanted to let you guys know that this chapter explores a bit of a darker theme this chapter. Suicide. Fat spoiler: no one dies or anything and I try to keep the mentioning of it fairly euphemized for the more sensitive of my audience members. If you are uncomfortable reading and still wanna know what happens, I'll do subtle recaps through the next chapter. Thanks, and enjoy!**

* * *

 **Z.E.Z. 400**

Chapter Five:

MIT; Make It Through

Liuxia's father shook his leg incessantly through the entirety of the directions given to him and the other test takers. He was told to print his full name in the upper right-hand corner of the digital booklet splayed out on the desk before him. He suppressed his shaking for a moment to ensure he printed legibly. Slow as molasses he wrote out:

M-A-T-T-H-I-E-U

L-A-N-E

F-E-L-I-N-D-E-R.

When he finished, he looked around him at the people beside and in front of him who sat at desks exactly three and one-half meters parallel to him in both directions.

"Pens down," the instructor said over the intercom.

The test takers obeyed and awaited their next orders.

For about twenty more minutes, Matthieu and the other test takers listened to the instructor's spiel about various test-taking strategies and the code of honor.

In what could have been summed up in a few bullet points was uselessly stretched out:

Speaking to other test-takers was not allowed.

Leaving your seat is prohibited unless permission is granted to do so.

Food, drink, and technology are prohibited during test-taking periods.

At the beginning of testing, each participant along with their chair and desk will be surrounded by an opaque barrier in order to prevent cheating.

If a test taker feels overwhelmed or claustrophobic, they may tap the upper corner of the booklet and choose to disable it.

The participant's desk alone will be surrounded by three walls to still prevent cheating.

Lastly, breaking any rule will first result in a warning.

If a rule is broken twice, testing for the individual or individuals will cease immediately.

Nervous, Matthieu, was almost startled by the sudden speaking of the instructor once more. "In exactly fifteen seconds the test will begin. You will have four and one-half hours to complete the first section of the booklet and another one and one-half hours to complete the second section. Warnings will be given every forty-five minute until the conclusion of the test. Also, timers can be found on the walls of the facility at various locations as well as within each individual cubicle. You may open the digital booklets and begin."

In unison, the digital booklets were opened and slowly, four walls began to rise around each individual test taker. There was enough room in the cubicles such that one could touch one wall without being able to reach the wall opposite of it. Also, the top of the cubicle remained open, so that the glass ceiling high above and thus the morde-cars above could remain within view. This was a blessing for Matthieu who considered himself to be claustrophobic. Last, but not least, there was a timer on the wall directly in front of Matthieu to be viewed at his convenience.

Though the timer was already ticking down, Matthieu gave himself a few moments to take a deep breath before even peeking at the questions before him.

Once he calmed himself down a bit, Matthieu looked down at the digital booklet and whispered the question to himself, "Find _f'_ of the function: _f_ (x)= ln(3x)."

Matthieu smirked to himself for being so prepared he instantly knew the answer. For the last twenty-four hours or so, he had practiced with his son, daughter, and wife the material that would be covered on the test, so they may have the greatest chance of boarding the Second Freedom.

He quickly selected the answer, _f'_ (x)=1/x, and went onto the next question. He could help but peek at the time and noticed it had already been a minute and a half. Slightly concerned he tried to be even quicker for the next few questions to make up for lost time.

Matthieu Felinder was no mathematician, engineer, or Librarian, so traditional mathematics was not his strong suit. If he did well in this subject, he could take a mental break during the reading comprehension section, which he was far more comfortable with considering that Matthieu was one of the more reputable authors in New Mobius.

The next question read simply: _Solve the equilateral triangle._

Matthieu's heart sank slightly when he realized he had forgotten how to solve non-right triangles. He decided to take the instructor's advice and skip the question until later.

He moved on to question number three: _Approximate the area beneath the curve of the given function then use this approximation to find the volume of the graph when rotated around the x-axis._

"Great, something else I forgot to study," Matthieu whispered skipping to question four.

 _A supply and demand curve are shown in the graph below. Label each part of the graph, then using the scale provided, determine the equilibrium price._

A sigh of disappointment came from Matthieu as he realized once more that he may have to skip another question. Time seemed to be slipping away as four minutes had now passed. In his left ear, he heard the ticking of the wristwatch he had brought along. He couldn't even read question five with the ticking noise filling his left ear. His right eye would twitch anxiously with each passing second.

"Question five," Matthieu began to say attempting to battle the obnoxious ticks, "What—"

 _Tick._

"What is the—"

 _Tick._

"...integral of a—"

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

 _Tock._

Anxiety began to fester in Matthieu as he thought terrifying thoughts like bombing this examination or missing the mark by a single question which would result in his family's abandonment.

It didn't take long to realize he was wasting time, however. Sick of such thoughts, Matthieu removed his watch and, with a suppressed grunt, pitched it over the wall of his cubicle. He was unsure where it went, he just prayed it didn't hit anyone. Peace and quiet surrounded him like a blanket to keep away the shivering anxiety. One more deep breath passed through Matthieu's lungs before he moved onto question five of two hundred.

Liuxia looked out of the window of her morde-car, her sodden emotions weighing her facial expressions into a frown. She took a deep breath she had already taken her test at midnight earlier in the day while her brother had taken it at six in the morning. Fortunately for her age group, Liuxia had scored in the top five percent. The reason she was in such a sour mood, though, was because she scored in exactly the range she had predicted. In a way, it was naive of her to believe that she would get lucky and score even higher, but she couldn't help but hope for a miracle. Typically, one would be content with achieving the mark they were destined to achieve, but when the excess points one accumulates could go towards getting a pass onto the most important stellar cruise of a person's life, the disappointment becomes understandable.

Shadow accompanied Liuxia as they drove through the Branch to the site where all the testing was going on. From where they were flying, the Branch's namesake could be seen in stunning detail in the distance. From the ground, the conical building touched the top of the technosp0here with a diameter, at its largest, of about one fifth the size of the entire city. Like an inverted tornado, the building spiraled and twisted unevenly upwards from its wide base to its thinner upper levels. Most notably of all, this was the brightest building in all of New Mobius because of its glassy, transparent exterior through which all the light could escape from the inner light sources. This building, named High Ramulus (n.n. i.), served as the facility where all testing would occur.

Shadow peeked over uncomfortably at Liuxia who had her knees pulled into her chest, still staring out of the window.

"You'd think your family was already dead how you're acting," Shadow said coldly hoping to fire Liuxia up as he found it was so easy to do.

"They may as well be with how I performed on the test," she sighed.

"And who says you're supposed the grand savior of your family's legacy?"

Liuxia sighed, "Can we not do this right now?"

Shadow scoffed, "At least you have a chance to leave this planet. I'm stuck here with no way to leave."

"Oh, Chaos. I forgot about that. What are you gonna do?"

"I have no clue, but I feel like I have a chance so long as I possess this Chaos Emerald. Perhaps if I could locate the Master Emerald, I would have a chance at traveling through time once more, but again that is only a chance."

"I don't mean to burst your bubble, but the Master Emerald hasn't been seen in over seventy years. At least, that's what the books say."

Shadow looked at Liuxia strangely, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What's up?"

"You're using contractions. Aren't you breaking some rule?"

"Not really, I'm not officially a Librarian yet, so I can speak however I want. The reason I spoke like that was so I was used to it by the time I actually got around to becoming one. It's how my Grandma used to talk since she used to be a Librarian. I guess I did it to keep her close."

"I see…"

Shadow would have commented further, but Liuxia's phone began to ring before he could.

"Oh great," Liuxia said sarcastically looking at the caller ID on her screen, "It's Vonner."

"Who the hell is Vonner?" Shadow asked trying not to sound overprotective.

"A friend, I guess."

"You guess?"

Liuxia dodged the question by answering her phone, "Hello?"

On the other end of call Vonner seemed to lack his annoying demeanor Liuxia is so used to hearing probably for the same reason Liuxia, "Hey, how're you holdin' up? I just got out of my test by the way."

"Oh, I… Well I've been better as you can imagine. How, uh, do you think you did?" Liuxia asked gingerly not expecting good news.

Vonner scoffed pathetically not even noticing the change in Liuxia's dialect, "Bottom thirty percent of the kids my age. It'll probably be even lower once everyone takes the test."

She was curious as to why Vonner had called her instead of his parents, especially if he had just gotten out of testing, "Have you talked to your parents at all? How did they do?"

"I have no clue. I don't have the heart to face'em right now. They called me a few times and left a bunch of voicemails, but I didn't bother answering."

"Where are you?"

"Still outside the testing facility. I'm with Cal. Turns out we were in the same testing facility."

"Which one? And how did Calentine do?"

"Ah, I think 10-B-West? And he didn't tell me, but I can only assume by his face that he didn't do too good."

"Is he there right now?"

"Nah, he went to the bathroom. Anyway, I'm sure you did fine. Just letting you know that your friends might not make it onto the Second Freedom with you."

Liuxia's heart broke as she heard Vonner say those words, but she spoke clearly and evenly despite the fissure in her chest, "You said you were at 10-B-West?"

"Yeah. We'll probably be here for a while. I'll, uh, see you around, then Liu—"

"Wait! I'll be there in less than ten minutes, okay?"

"Hold on, you're in the Branch now?

"Yeah, I came early to wait for my parents.

"Ah, well, I'm sure Cal could use the support if you do actually decide to come."

Liuxia didn't like the 'actually' in Vonner's sentence. As if he didn't believe she'd really come when his esteem was at such a low point. Her guilt began to swell like a water balloon as she thought of her treatment of one of the few people she'd begrudgingly call a friend.

"I'll definitely be there," she reassured.

"Alrighty," Vonner said before promptly hanging up on her.

This was not the reaction she was expecting.

The instant Liuxia hung up her phone, Shadow felt the energy of the chaos emerald begin to pulsate weakly. He looked beneath the seat of the car where Liuxia hid it and retrieved it. He could see the see the brilliance of the crimson emerald shine through weakly before it faded back to gray as it had been.

"What's up with that thing," Liuxia said noticing the brief restoration of the emerald's power.

It only took about five minutes to reach High Ramulus, then another two to find the facility Vonner and Calentine were in. Conveniently, there was parking on their level, so Liuxia could more quickly find her friends. From where they parked, Liuxia peered through the glass building and saw the two familiar figures

Her morde-car descended gently onto the platform which leads directly into the 10-B-West facility.

"Thanks for the ride Mordecai," Liuxia said before opening the door and hastily exiting.

"Always a pleasure," it responded briefly.

"Wait," Shadow said before Liuxia halted in her tracks. "Should I come with?"

Liuxia, in a bit of a hurry, she simply replied, "Sure, but cover your head with my sweater. It's underneath the seat."

Shadow reached underneath his seat and became incredibly reluctant to wear the sweater once he had seen it. It was a bright neon green one with some "girly B.S." in the design, as Shadow would describe it.

He suppressed the urge to throw it off the parking platform, and forcefully pulled it over his head, covering his spines. He followed Liuxia's lead until they had reached a dark brown and white osprey looking down at his smartphone.

The entire time they approached him, Vonner did not look away from his phone. To Shadow, it seemed like the only thing capable of pulling his attention away was Liuxia.

"Hey," Liuxia said blandly, making sure not to come off as too cheery. The situation was delicate after all. Somehow despite what her tone indicated, she was glad to see Vonner.

"Oh, hey, Liuxia," Vonner said sharing the attention to his phone with her.

As he looked up, he noticed the dark hedgehog in the overly bright sweater that did not fit him well at all. He stifled a laugh and asked Liuxia, "Friend of yours?"

"Um...oh! You mean him?" Liuxia said playfully punching Shadow in the arm. "No that's not my friend, silly, that's...uh my cousin!"

"Your cousin is a hedgehog? How is that even genetically possible?"

"I have no clue. You know what they say about hedgehogs though: they love cat food."

"Right… that still doesn't ma-"

"So, where's Calentine? Is he still in the bathroom?" Liuxia interrupted before her tongue could spew any more lies.

"I'm not sure. I can go check on him if you want," Vonner said standing up.

"Please," Liuxia asked solemnly.

It only took a minute for Vonner to come back with a concerned look on his face.

"You didn't find him?" Liuxia interrogated.

Vonner shrugged and shook his head, "I have no clue where the hell he could've gone."

"We could walk around a little to see if we run into him. I'm sure he's around here somewhere."

And so Liuxia, Shadow, and Vonner went searching through the huge testing facility. They checked the empty testing room as well as peeking through the windows of the filled ones. They looked down every corridor on that level and found nothing. Vonner and Liuxia were beginning to get worried.

"Where could that jackrabbit have gone, dude?" Vonner said whipping out his phone and rhythmically tapping in a number.

Before he could even bring the phone up to his ear, he was hit with an automated voice prompting for a voicemail.

Vonner seemed to be losing his patience He threw his hands up in the air and plopped down on one of the benches beside an active testing room. He placed his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees as he took a deep breath.

Liuxia looked at Vonner. Her concern shifted from Calentine to Vonner who was looking far beyond defeated at the moment. Liuxia sympathized with him but knew that she couldn't relate to the looming of certain death. And to top it all off, one of your only friends goes missing after they had done badly on such a pivotal test. Sure, Liuxia was stressed, but she couldn't imagine the pressure that Vonner was under.

"Liuxia can I see your phone?" Vonner asked randomly.

"Uh, sure, why? Gonna try and call him on my phone too?" Liuxia wondered if Vonner was getting that desperate.

"Who's your provider?" he asked grabbing the phone out of Liuxia's hand.

"Dipole Mobile, I think."

"Hm, that might be little harder than Isotope Unlimited. I think this can still work, though"

"What are you getting to work exactly?"

"Well, in normie terms, I'm hacking your phone, so I can triangulate Cal's position," Vonner said beginning to walk in the direction they came from.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, pal, isn't that, like, illegal? I'm pretty sure that's illegal!" Liuxia said following closely behind.

"Does it look like I'm worried about breaking the law? I just wanna find my friend." Vonner said going about his business on their phone.

Liuxia was surprised at how quickly Vonner seemed to accept his fate, especially with how torn he was only an hour ago.

"Fair enough," she said having no real response.

Liuxia observed as Vonner he looked back and forth between the screens and tapping expertly on what Liuxia assumed were the right inputs. She was amazed at how uncharacteristically knowledgeable the typically silly osprey was. There was no way this was the same Vonner she knew for all these years.

Liuxia kicked herself internally. She has a bad habit of wholly underestimating people until they surprise her with feats of skill like what she was currently witnessing.

Before she knew it, she heard an excited "Bingo!" from her friend.

"What did you find? Where is he?"

"He's in…Dead End City? How'd he get there so fast?"

"Maybe his parents picked him up?"

"Nah that wouldn't make sense. Their age group should be testing at this time…"

"Good point," Liuxia said stumped.

"Don't you people have taxis or something?" Shadow piped up finally after his extended silence.

"Yeah, but they're super expensive considering all the luxury features built in. I mean you could jog the span of any city within a half hour realistically, so no one bothers paying the ridiculous rates."

"Like you said earlier about crime, I don't think he's worried about his pockets at the moment," Shadow elaborated.

Vonner's eyes shot open. When he took the meaning of what Shadow said to another level.

He looked up from the two phones that he was observing and stared at Liuxia and Shadow with a look of, not concern, but pure fear.

"You don't think he's planning on, like, doing something he'll regret do you?"

"Wait you mean like…Oh no, no, no. Hold up, he lives in D.E.C., though. He could've just gone home," Liuxia justified.

"Well, we should still go check on him anyway. I don't trust that guy by himself," Vonner said sounding like a concerned older brother.

After a brisk walk to the parking platform, the group of three headed directly to Dead End City. It was a worrisome 45-minute ride.

For thirty of them, Liuxia could keep her guilt in check, but the stress of the situation was wearing on her psyche. She considered apologizing to Vonner for everything she had ever done which equated to generally disassociating herself with him in any way. Ultimately, she decided against it. She felt it would be incredibly shallow and predictable considering the endeavor that they were currently trying to sort out. Besides, there was no time to have a heartfelt conversation in the fifteen minutes left before they could find Calentine.

Soon Liuxia's thoughts drifted to Shadow and how exactly they were supposed to get him home in only a few days. She also thought about the possibility of Liuxia and all her loved ones to head back in time with him if her family doesn't manage to get on the Second Freedom.

Liuxia shifted in her seat a little and looked out the car door window. Just as she did, the bland uniformity of the slip-streams—the areas that connect the separate cities—broke into the large expanse of Dead End City.

Though the place was large, Dead End City was incredibly dense with tall buildings that kissed the technosphere. Liuxia had been here fewer times than she could count on one hand, so each new time she visits, she can't help but be a bit overwhelmed. In areas where suburbia would rule in New Cleus City, only cold, hard apartments could be seen; stretching upwards to the limit. The parks Liuxia were accustomed to seeing at home were replaced by shopping malls and convenience stores, their colorful LED displays providing ample light to the pedestrians below.

"The name of the place doesn't really do much for the look," Liuxia commented.

"Agreed," Shadow said, "Why's it called Dead End City anyway?"

"Well, it's the city equivalent of a cul-de-sac. One way in, one way o—"

"Hey, hey, hey! Look there! It's Calentine!" Vonner yelled pointing to one of the huge LED displays slightly below where they were hovering.

Liuxia looked out her window and couldn't believe what she saw. Calentine was looking over the edge of one of the enormous buildings. The particular one he stood on looked to be covered in banners, and various other shiny, greedy political paraphernalia. His face looked prepared and determined. Naturally, Liuxia initiated manual control of her morde-car and zipped in Cal's direction once they had identified which building it was.

It was easy to spot considering the spotlights, cameras, and attention of the crowd was focused on the reflective white jackrabbit.

He knew exactly what he needed to do. He was a disgrace. He was worthless. And now he had practically killed his entire family. How could he carry such a burden?

As much as he justified wanting to disappear, Calentine could not muster the strength to carry through with doing so. He stood with tears far beyond welling in his eyes. Just like his vision, Calentine's willingness to carry through with his plan was fuzzy, unclear. Much of his apprehension came from the large gathering of people below. Perhaps these people cared. They seemed to at least. Not to mention the large trampoline they had set up just for him, and the negotiator that was trying to coerce him out of his decision. Calentine was mostly ignoring him, though.

Calentine inched his right foot over the ledge more out of curiosity than intent. His heart melted into his stomach as he felt the unbalance of his toes teetering over the edge. He quickly retracted them and crouched to his hands and knees.

"Dammit!" he yelled.

He stepped down from the ledge and sat down on the roof. He curled himself in a ball and just cried all the while the negotiator was still speaking through his megaphone.

"What the hell am doing?" he asked himself.

 _You're trying to spare yourself the shame and embarrassment of looking at your mother crying as she realizes you've virtually killed your whole family._

"I should just die, right? Those people don't really care, do they?"

 _Get real. If_ _ **anyone**_ _down there cared they would have taken their morde-cars up here to try and convince you to stop, but no one's done that._

"But what about the negotiator, he's here. He's trying…"

 _Use your head, he gets paid to try._

"I'm just so scared. Scared of heights, scared of death. I wis—"

 _That you could go back to bed and wake up and everything would magically be alright?_

 _Grow. Up._

"Grow up, Calentine," he repeated in his mind and out loud. It was time.

While Calentine sulked, there was a team of X-bots dispatched. They scaled the building in hopes that they could capture him before he could put himself in another precarious situation. All at once they slinked over the edge onto the top of the building, catching Calentine unawares.

He popped to his feet, surprised and turned around quickly enough to see an X-bot trying to grab him. He scrambled away from it and returned to the ledge, his safe haven.

"Citizen, please stand down. Citizen, please stand down…" they droned simultaneously and repetitively while making their calculated approach.

"Back off!" Calentine yelled.

When he yelled, they stopped for a moment before resuming their approach.

Desperate and wanting to avoid making even more trouble for his family by being arrested, Calentine took a step backward, closed his eyes and placed his arms out as if he were plopping down onto his warm comfy bed. But just as he began to feel the air rushing past him, he heard the voice of two angels cry out from above him.

" _Calentine!"_

The hopeless jackrabbit opened his eyes and spotted two people he wasn't expecting to see.

 _Vonner? Liuxia?_

And that's when it hit him.

Regret.

Before it was too late, Calentine brought his legs into his body and reached out for the very same ledge he had fallen from. With two fingers, he barely caught it.

 _Why? You barely know these people! They don't care eith—_

"Shut up!" Calentine cried gritting his teeth.

He was safe for now, but his grip was failing him.

Liuxia held her breath at the sight of her friend dangling over the edge. She paused for far too long before taking control of her morde-car and getting as close as the crash prevention software in her morde-car would allow. It was still not close enough.

"Calentine! Hang on!" Vonner yelled inside the car before turning to Liuxia and Shadow and asking for their next course of action.

"How much do you care about him, the rabbit guy?" Shadow asked.

"What? Um, how do I respond to that? I—"

"It's a simple question," Shadow said, sick of her evasive tendencies when it came to discussing relationships.

Liuxia looked back at Calentine who was still hanging from the ledge with X-bots approaching.

"Liuxia, answer him!" Vonner said also annoyed at her evasiveness.

Liuxia was even frustrated with her own lack of an answer. Was it even appropriate to call Calentine a friend? She had barely known him a week at this point. And even if they were friends would friends who knew each other for only a week go this far for one another?

Liuxia even wrestled the thought of her and Vonner being friends. Sure, they had known each other for a while, but she usually considered him a nuisance, but here he was worried for Calentine just as much as she was. All because of this stupid class assignment was she stuck to the hip with these people, but was it such a bad thing?

"I…I care about them, Calentine _and_ Vonner. I care so much, and I want him to live!" Liuxia said as her voice begin to crack with the weight of her tears.

Before Liuxia could question her tears, Shadow scooted past them in the car and opened the door.

'That's all I needed to hear," Shadow said.

"Wait, Shadow, what're you doing?" Vonner asked.

A moment later, Liuxia, screamed a blood-curdling scream as Calentine's grip had finally failed. Shadow didn't have long before the jackrabbit was

Shadow rocketed out of the car downwards towards Calentine. His shoes propelled him downwards making him accelerate downwards more quickly than Calentine was, but he still wasn't fast enough to catch up in the few seconds he was given. Shadow was honestly out of ideas when he felt a familiar pulse from the chaos emerald he grabbed before he leaped.

"Good timing. Chaos Control!" he yelled flashing directly beside Calentine.

He grabbed the jackrabbit by his thin waistline and attempted to teleport once more, but the emerald had gone dull once more. Shadow searched frantically for something below that he could grip onto. The only thing he saw was a banner that jutted from the side of the building that was held up by a metal rod.

Shadow reached with his left hand and braced for the strain he was going place on his arm. Using the rod, he was able to redirect their momentum sideways. This slowed their descent enough to where Shadow's shoes could resist gravity enough to give him a painful, but manageable landing. He ensured that he took the brunt of the fall while Calentine flopped relatively gently onto the ground. Shadow crouched and took a second to catch his breath.

They had landed in the middle of a crowd that cheered for the hedgehog's performance. Shadow could care less about the applaud he was getting. He just needed to get out of the public eye before he was recognized despite the pink sweater that he wore throughout the rescue.

Quickly, Shadow walked over to Calentine and barked, "Hurry and get on my back. We're getting out of here."

"Um, okay," Calentine said not really understanding what was happening.

"And how out about you use that phone you weren't keen on answering earlier to call Liuxia so we can get a ride out of here," Shadow jabbed.

Blushing, Calentine jumped on Shadow's back and turned his phone on.

He had tons of missed calls from his brothers and sisters who undoubtedly saw the news. He ignored his embarrassment long enough to call Liuxia.

"Calentine!" he heard on the other end only moments after he called.

"Hi, um, this, uh, black and red guy wants to know where we can get picked up.

"Oh! That's Shadow. Tell him to keep heading straight until Kilos Prower Memorial Road. We'll be there in a minute!"

"Okay," Calentine said before quickly hanging up, beginning to feel bad for worrying his friends.

"She, uh, said to head straight until Klios Prower Memorial Road. That's like three blocks down.

"Alright, Shadow said speeding up as the crowd split in half for him.

One block from Memorial road, a row of X-bots was lined up and Shadow could see them in the distance. Naturally, he turned a corner only to see even more X-bots and a barrier being erected just behind them. He turned the way they came, and he saw a similar sight. He had been barred in from all four sides. Civilians were ordered to pass through the barrier to keep themselves safe as the barricades that blocked all four streets of the intersection encroached upon Shadow. Not out of ideas yet, Shadow barged into one of the stores on the street nearby and let Calentine off of his back. He tossed him the Chaos Emerald and Liuxia's sweater.

"Hide that emerald and make sure no one sees it," Shadow ordered, "Cover yourself up. And tell Liuxia I'll be alright. Now, get out of here!"

Calentine headed for the entrance of the store as there was no exit that didn't have a barrier over it. He slipped on the pink sweater tucked his giant ears away as well as the emerald and was about to head out. He stopped briefly and turned around to thank Shadow, but an X-bot grabbed him thinking he was an endangered civilian and placed him outside. Unsure what to do, he bypassed the barrier and headed for Memorial Road.

Shadow fought past a few X-bots, so he could get back outside where he could more easily fight them off. But once he was enclosed within a fairly small box—each side being the width of the street it covered—the X-bots stopped pursuing him and a single person walked out of the diminishing crowd of frantic mobians and stood off with Shadow.

As Shadow eyed this individual, he noticed the shifting color of his pupils as he swayed side to side in his walk. He wore all red and wore a discontent scorn on his face. He stopped a dangerous five feet away from Shadow with his arms folded and eyes glowering.

"You've been quite the nuisance hedgehog, but we've got you cornered now," this stranger said to Shadow.

"Who are you?" Shadow said defensively taking a step back.

He gave his trump card to Calentine, so he couldn't afford to be the aggressor in this situation.

"I am Iudex Supremus Carthage the Echidna. A man you have far more than offended with your reckless endangerment of my people. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing. And I'd be more intimidated if I knew what that even meant," Shadow barked back folding his arms as Carthage had.

As Carthage responded, he slowly stepped closer and closer to Shadow until their faces were mere inches from one another.

"It means I am the most powerful judge in all of New Mobius. It means that I have the power to send you to the Z.E.Z. to rot in the harshness of space for the rest of eternity. It means that if any one of my citizens had gotten hurt today or yesterday, you would have been facing me in the courtroom to hear the merciless pang of my gavel as you were sentenced to death. Do you understand?"

Shadow scoffed, his eyes darting right and left looking for any last second means of escape. There were none.

"It's your move, hedgehog," Carthage said still extremely close, his cold, reflective eyes drilling into Shadow.

Cornered, Shadow threw his hands up. He was defeated.

With a condescending smirk upon his mug, Carthage ordered, "Arrest this one. He goes to the peak of High Ramulus."

Only one block away, Liuxia and Vonner just landed, they saw Calentine out of breath jogging toward them. He was wearing Liuxia's sweater and had one hand tucked in his pocket as he ran.

"No wonder he took so long," Liuxia gathered, "Where's Shadow?"

Liuxia and Vonner jumped off the hood of her car to greet him as he just approached.

Vonner was the first to speak up, "Cal! Hey, dude, don't scare us like that," he said placing a tender hand on Calentine's shoulder.

"I…I'm so sorry, I don't know what got into me, I just…" Calentine began rambling on.

With two soft hands on his shoulders, she stopped him midway.

"It's alright," Liuxia said before pulling him into a tight hug.

He was frozen. He felt a rush of many emotions, but the one that was the most painful to accept was his gratitude, especially once he heard Liuxia sniffling on his shoulder. He began to tear up as well.

"But please don't ever do that again," she said simply, her voice wobbly and uneven as she cried.

Vonner surprised himself as he felt a twinge of jealousy flood through his mind. He tried to ignore it as rubbed both Liuxia and Calentine's backs.

"Hey guys we should head somewhere private to talk more," Vonner said as he noted the odd stares he and his friends were getting.

"You're right," Liuxia said as she pulled away from the hug. She wiped Calentine's tears from his face then used her shirt to clean up her own, "We're gonna make it through this together, okay?"

"Okay," Calentine nodded quietly.

Liuxia also grabbed Vonner and gave him a quick side hug pressing her face onto his like an annoying big sister and thanked him before they all retired to her car. They had a lot to talk about.

Liuxia hadn't forgotten about Shadow, though. Both he and she knew the risk he was taking by exposing himself like he did. She was grateful to him and would do everything she could do to get him back within the next day or two before the solar flare hits. It would be down to the wire, but Liuxia owed it to him. All her friends did.

 _Z.E.Z. 4000~_

 _Nerdy Note Time!_

 _n.n.i: Ramulus is synonymous with twig or branch. It just sounds cooler._


End file.
